In 2008, I graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. It was not long after graduation that I started flying C-130s out of Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas. I was a bright-eyed, self-described, patriot doing what I thought was the right thing: giving back to, and trying to protect, the country that had given me so much. It wasn’t until my first deployment to Iraq that I started questioning the United States’ involvement on the other side of the globe. Why, exactly, was I there, and what was it that the U.S. government was trying to accomplish? While in Iraq, I started doing some serious research into the history, politics, and economics of the government. As time went on, I became more and more infuriated with the results of my curiosity-driven investigation.
The first, and perhaps most obvious, point I recognized was that the United States had absolutely no right to invade Iraq. The war was justified through hundreds of lies when, in actuality, it had nothing to do with 9/11 or even terrorism. Early in my research, I came to the conclusion that the people responsible for starting the war should be punished for the high crime of initiating a war of aggression. To my disbelief, no one had, or has since, been held remotely accountable for this heinous crime.
Unfortunately, Iraq is not the only war crime for which the United States is guilty. Since both sides in a war usually claim that the other side started the war, I prefer to look at where the war was fought for a better idea of who actually started it. The United States has a long and steady history of starting wars in other countries that no one seems to remember and that schools fail to teach. The results of this constant warring have been the deaths of many millions of people, the destruction of unimaginable amounts of wealth, and the ruining of countless lives – on both sides. Based on the ease and boneheadedness with which it goes to war, and the fact that it has many times more damage-causing resources than any other organization, I believe the United States was, and still is, the most dangerous threat to peace and prosperity on this planet.
Another hard to swallow, yet painfully obvious, realization I had was that the U.S. government has now turned to full-blown fascism. It has direct control of about 40 percent of the economy through government spending, while a never-ending list of rules and regulations controls the other 60 percent of the economy. The United States uses perpetual war to drive imperial ambitions all the while encouraging people to support and praise the military responsible for enabling this imperialism. The government interaction with the people it claims to be helping is textbook totalitarian, as evidenced by NSA spying, TSA harassment, recent handling of protesters as seen on YouTube, militarization of police, the failed War on Drugs that has led to the highest incarceration rate in the world, and the elimination of the Bill of Rights. It quickly became clear to me that the biggest threat to the American people had become none other than their own federal government.
After months of study, I finally hit the point where I had seen enough. I decided not to work for such a wicked organization, regardless of the consequences. I proceeded to tell my commander that I was not going to work for an evil empire, and then I talked to the legal department about resigning my commission. A year and a half after my initial request, the Secretary of the Air Force finally accepted my resignation, waiving the last seven years of my active duty service commitment.
For those of you still working for the U.S. government in any capacity, I ask that you seriously reconsider exactly who it is that you’re working for. You don’t want to be guilty of working for the bad guys and end up on the wrong side of history. Do some soul searching, gather the courage it takes to do what’s right, and then quit.
