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Comment by the_lego | Hacker News Reader

> We have provoked and participated in many wars in neighboring countries to defend our "economic interests".

"We"? How many of those wars were started by popular demand, with protests on the streets demanding our leaders take military action? "We" are being blamed for the actions of oil and weapons lobbyists (whose wars are paid by our taxes), and then asked to face the consequences of the actions due to their subversion of democracy.

We pay for the wars we don't want, we get the blame, we get to deal with the immigrants, and in the end, we still have to pay for the oil - the oil companies that benefit (always unnamed) don't hand it out for free!

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> We pay for the wars we don't want, we get the blame, we get to deal with the immigrants, and in the end, we still have to pay for the oil - the oil companies that benefit (always unnamed) don't hand it out for free!

I understand the evil ways of our leaders... However, I cannot face a person whose town has been bombed to oblivion by my purportedly elected officials, and tell him that I'm a "victim of the system" just like him.

As for "protests on the streets", I've certainly participated in most of the anti-war protests that have happened around me. Problem is that my neighbours consistently keep voting for our ever murderous leadership!

> We pay for the wars we don't want

Simple solution: don’t vote for people who start wars? The EU claims to be one of the most democratic entities. Why do people complain they’re being screwed by some minority group?

I don’t think elections are being won by being honest about your military intentions.

People did vote for people who didn't want to start wars. For example, Donald Trump was elected on an anti-interventionist platform and attempted to pursue it as Commander-in-Chief of the United States armed forces. The wars didn't cease, and late in the Trump administration prominent Pentagon officials actually bragged in public how they lied to the President and his officials for years and unconstitutionally misappropriated military resources to continue the foreverwars until he was out of office. Trump was specifically elected to end the endless quagmire of foreign intervention and mass immigration, and yet it turns out that there are no democratic or peaceful means to eliminate these things. Believing you simply have to stop voting for the military-industrial complex is counter to all available data and just incredibly naive at the outset.

Trump sped up climate change, making the scenario in the article happen more and more often. People like him (Trump) are some of the worst, for those living in Africa. (Also, the voters in the US didn't primarily vote for Trump for the reasons you seem to think.)

Okay but that doesn't change the fact that Trump tried with withdraw the troops from Syria and the Pentagon officials lied to his face and told him they took the troops out, and later bragged in public about misleading the duly elected President. That's a thing that happened, regardless of what reasons you think people elected Trump for, even though the economy, immigration, and anti-war sentiments were vigorously popular reasons among the base.

The point is that you are not allowed to vote against war anymore. It is demonstrably not possible to vote a different Commander-in-Chief in and end the war. Republicans tried that.

We are also not in Syria because of climate change. We are there because they are a geopolitical adversary of Israel.

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