Declaring America's Independence From the Tyranny of Militarism and War
Beware the Termites of War
In July 1776, courageous colonists came together to declare their independence from the perceived tyranny of King George III. “Rebels” like Thomas Jefferson urged the colonists to start down a new path, one of independence from the Crown, one that put life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness before fealty to a king. It was a long-shot effort, but the rebels somehow pulled it off.
Today, America has a new “king.” It’s the national security state, with all its threat inflation, its wars, and its appetite for more, always more. Combine that with President Trump and self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and their reckless pursuit of war irrespective of the Constitution and of international law, let alone Christian concepts of morality, and you have a form of tyranny that Americans must declare their independence from.
So, consistent with Jefferson, we need a new American revolution, or if you prefer a restoration of the republic, one that recognizes that immense imperial militaries are corrosive to democracy and individual liberty.
2026 can be a new 1776 if America rejects the tyranny of war and ever-higher Pentagon spending. America needs new sons and daughters of liberty, committed to diplomacy and peace, as fostered in a true participatory democracy that puts the needs of U.S. citizens first.
America’s Founders knew that persistent war is a most insidious and pernicious enemy to our freedoms. America today is a structure infested by the termites of war. If we fail to get rid of them, our house will collapse in a pile of dust.
Since 1776, many patriotic Americans have warned of the dangers of persistent warfare and steroidal military spending. Perhaps most famously, President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 spoke of the immense waste of weapons spending: how humanity would crucify itself on a cross of iron if wars endured and war budgets kept rising. He spoke again in 1961 of how America’s military-industrial complex was threatening the fundamental freedoms and liberty of Americans, especially if that complex was allowed to spread and grow. Ike’s warning went unheeded as America fought disastrous and unnecessary wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and elsewhere.
Ike came to recognize the astonishing waste and dangers of militarism and war. So should we all. Let us on our nation’s 250th birthday declare our independence from persistent and pernicious militarism and warfare.
Eisenhower's CROSS OF IRON speech in 1953 had more in it than itemizing the real costs of War.
He also iterated what US Foreign Policy should be;
First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be an enemy -- for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.
Second: No nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation -- but only in effective cooperation with fellow nations.
Third: Every nation's right to a form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.
Fourth: Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.
And Fifth: A nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments -- but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations.
Unfortunately, he violated principles 3 & 4 just months after that Enlightened speech when the CIA and England's MI6 orchestrated the 1963 Regime Change of the Democratically elected Iranian government of Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh that still resonates in this World these 73 years later.
While many tend to idealize and at time idolize the 'Founding Fathers', I believe it is better to see them as the flawed and often corrupt patricians they were. Yet in spite of their own shortcomings, they were able to form a government of competing powers (executive, congressional, and judicial), recognizing, if not said directly, that power corrupts - particularly among flawed self-serving people and that no single part of the government should have unlimited power.
It is almost irresistible to assign the word "king" to Trump and his court of sycophants and true believers. But I think we should give thanks to Trump - he has demonstrated the terrible powers that have accrued to the executive branch since the creation of the national security state, enabled in large measure by the failure of multiple Congresses (do we still have one?). Powers, I believe, that will be used by his successors - no matter their political orientation.
There are many calls for a new 'American revolution' (suggested peacefully in most cases) But if there were ever to be a time for a new 'republic', one hopes its based not on idealistic notions of the better angels of our nature, but on the need to balance power among competing interests promoted by flawed human beings.