With all our attention focused on the national debt and our fear of people having health insurance, there’s one serious problem we’ve all been ignoring: America is now facing a shortage of meaningful enemies.
Think about it: The war in Iraq is essentially over, the conflict in Afghanistan is winding down, and Syria is now being inspected for chemical and biological weapons.
Not only that, but Russia doesn’t want to bury us anymore; they just want to sell us their oil and gas. And even Cuba has stopped hating us and is now taking baby steps toward private enterprise.
But without a menacing, new enemy, there’s just no way the Pentagon can justify spending nearly $700 billion each year—20 percent of every tax dollar we send to Washington. (By comparison, the entire budget for the Environmental Protection Agency is $10.5 billion.)
Note: This means our military budget is now six times more than China’s, 11 times more than Russia’s and 27 times more than Iran’s.
It’s clear that America needs somebody to be afraid of—a reliable new boogeyman to help our threatened military economy.
And we need to act fast—before bands of know-nothing congressmen slash military spending down to the size where they can “drown it in the bathtub,” as some people have threatened.
To help us get started in the arduous search for a new enemy, here are some thoughts and directions that immediately come to mind:
1. “Satan” does not qualify, despite enormous numbers of leaflets from fundamentalist churches left on my doorstep. Unfortunately, he (or she) cannot be engaged in combat by anything our Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex is able to produce.
2. Sorry, the “United Nations” doesn’t work as an enemy, either. Let’s get real—they can’t even make their own diplomats pay the $17,000,000 they owe New York City for parking tickets. The idea that the 192 member states of the UN will actually agree to invade somebody is far-fetched, to say the least.
3. “Muslims.” The bad news is that more and more Muslims have been exposed by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security as ordinary people who just want to be left alone to worship as they choose. The wacko little groups of jihadists are in decline, and it is clear that Muslims pose no more danger to America than Boston Red Sox fans.
4. “Nation States.” Two come to mind: North Korea and China. North Korea is a truly bizarre country that, in the 65 years of its existence, has never even figured out how to feed its own people. Occasionally, they pound their chests and fire a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan. China, of course, could become a problem but we owe them so much money, and buy so many of their products, that both our economies would self-destruct if it became our enemy.
5. “Environmentalists” are considered by some Military/Industrial folks to be the enemy, but so few Americans seem to really pay attention to what’s going on in our environment (look up “Fracking” and “Does Sonar Cause Deafness In Dolphins and Whales?” on Google) that they do not seem to pose a serious threat.
5. “Telemarketers.” They are ranked No. 1 on everyone’s list, and are universally despised. The problem is, we don’t know what they look like or where to find them. Before they become our official enemy, the Pentagon will have to do a nationwide survey which will almost certainly include annoying telemarketing calls at dinnertime to find out your opinion.
As you can see, picking a new enemy isn’t easy.
So…if you have any thoughts about who America’s next enemy should be, send us an email*. We’ll pass all your ideas along to the proper authorities in Washington.
It’s the patriotic thing to do.
