The biggest threat to world peace: US wars in 150 countries

According to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bockholt, a public affairs officer with US Special Operations Command, American forces are conducting black ops and shadow wars in 133 countries - roughly 70% of the nations on the planet. This capped a three-year span in which the country's forces were active in more than 150 countries, carrying out missions ranging from kill and capture raids to terrorist training exercises, wars and coups - with unforeseen blowbacks and catastrophic consequences.

Just for the record, some 405,000 people have been killed as a result of the US-led war in Iraq. Some 200,000 people have also been killed in Syria where America's "moderate" terrorists are pushing for regime change in Damascus. The US is also a major threat to its own people: It is the world's largest incarcerator of people, with some 2.3 million in prison - one million of whom are African Americans.

Much of the global violence and terrorism today can be traced back to these imperial adventures and shadow ops. The rise of the terrorist groups of Al-Qaeda and ISIL is traced to the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The recent terrorist attack in France came as a direct consequence of the Syria war spillover. The drug-related violence sweeping Latin America or the territorial disputes and wars across the African continent are also tied to the US role in militarizing these regions. Since 2006, the US-led war on drugs has taken over 100,000 lives in Mexico alone!

The arming and outfitting of militants and the training of terrorist leaders in the Persian Gulf also serve as further proof that consecutive US administrations have lied about the so-called war on terror. Their double standard approach to the subject matter of terrorism is in fact the reason behind the ongoing surge in violence and terrorism in the Middle East AND Europe.

Despite their massive scale and scope, these not-so-secret adventures across much of the planet are unknown to most people. The vast majority of missions remains completely in the shadows and is never subjected to meaningful examination - which only increases the chances of blowbacks and catastrophic consequences.

This criminal legacy was put into focus once more by the Senate's torture report released last December. American media outlets summarized the findings of the damning document: The torture program was far more brutal than we thought and not effective enough!

These are only some of the overwhelming facts that managed to make it into the news and onto the record. So after considering the trail of torture, war crimes, bloods, coups, tactical missions and "humanitarian" bombs that continues to follow the American flag wherever it goes, it is safe to say the US is exceptional in many things; liberty, democracy and justice are not among them.

This while the Military Industrial Complex is still being consistently propped up by the concept of American exceptionalism, shadow wars, massive surveillance and untold numbers of assassinations. So it's also safe to conclude that these bullets and beliefs make the United States the biggest war criminal and the biggest threat to global peace and security the world has ever seen.

Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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