Americans desensitize to the traumatic effects of war to believe that it is an unavoidable element of humanity. Howard Zinn revealed the unique American devotion with war in his book, Declaration of Independence:
"Most people are not that enamored of war. They see it as bad but also as a possible means of good." We've been conditioned to find war a necessity for our comfortable living with no other options. We are taught to believe that we must have a devotion to it as the ultimate symbol of patriotism. It is our infamous trait. But it is less about the people’s desire for war than the government’s greed.
About 2 weeks ago President Obama made a statement about America’s war against Afghanistan coming to end:
“For more than 13 years, ever since nearly 3,000 innocent lives were taken from us on 9/11, our nation has been at war in Afghanistan,” It came hours after the United States and NATO formally ended the war with a ceremony at a military headquarters in Kabul. Obama said that this ceremony marked a milestone for the nation and gave thanks U.S. troops and intelligence personnel for their “extraordinary sacrifices.” Approximately 2,200 American troops were killed in Afghanistan in a war that cost the U.S. $1 trillion since the initial invasion in 2001. He purposely left out that there have been an estimated 21,000 civilian Afghan casualties at the hands of this war. And that is a perfect representation of U.S. war.
It has became an embarrassment to citizens aware of its invalidity. This has been the fuel for American political cartoons targeted at making fun of the propaganda used to ridicule overwhelming infatuation with war.
The greed for power has come at the expense of too many American citizens and innocent people victimized by unnecessary attacks. But one could say that it does not go against democracy because war protects America against its enemies. But false. Many of the war recently fought were to emphasize the point that America is Almighty and to acquire more oil, thus increasing U.S. profit. Gil Scott Heron elegantly expresses the relation between military in this piece “Work for Peace”.