Lisa McCormick calls for peace action, cites congressional neglect

U.S. military forces have been engaged in unauthorized hostilities in many more places than America citizens know about while spending so much money that the generals and admirals cannot keep track of their waste, according to Lisa McCormick, New Jersey's leading progressive champion. "The Pentagon cannot account for 60 percent of its assets while US forces engage in unauthorized hostile military adventures in a dozen places around the globe."

"We made a terrible mistake sending soldiers to die in Afghanistan & Iraq, but most Americans remain unaware that US military forces are killing people in Somalia, Cameroon, Chad, Egypt, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Syria, Tunisia, or Yemen," said McCormick, who earned almost four out of ten votes in New Jersey's 2018 Democratic primary election, when she challenged US Senator Bob Menendez, the hawkish chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

McCormick said the Pentagon has failed to disclose all its battlefields to Congress, let alone the public. A report from New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice confirms her assertions and an audit showed that the military cannot account for 60 percent of its assets.

"The Pentagon doesn't need more money but Congress is giving them $858 billion, up 25% from the $633 billion military budget in 2015, while we had two ongoing wars," said McCormick.

McCormick blames Menendez, in large part, for failing to exert his the Foreign Relations chairmanship to restrain military adventuring in spots around the globe. "When Bob Menendez talks about his aspirations for prosperity, democracy, and security, he's usually advocating the death of ignorant and impoverished people in places that most Americans know very little about," said McCormick. "It is time to break free from that kind of shoot-first, ask-questions-later kind of foreign policy and recognize that every where in the world, there can be no peace as long as there is no justice.

"America should be prepared to defend peace and prosperity but leading by example, instead of trying to force desperate people around the world to accept our version of geopolitical affairs," said McCormick. "It is not true that corporate objectives and economic interests always align with the values and ideals of the American people, so we should reject the expedience of military adventurism and gunboat diplomacy and we must also recognize that it does not work."

"One would think that US policymakers have learned nothing from such ill-fated misadventures as American interference in Iran in 1953, in Vietnam during the 1960s, during the violent 1973 overthrow of Chile's democratically-elected Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende, the illegal support for Contras in the 1980s Nicaraguan civil war, right up until President Donald Trump's surrender to the Taliban in Afghanistan," said McCormick.

"While there are dangerous people in the world, resorting to violence is an antiquated and ineffectual way of stopping them," said McCormick, who expressed support for the men and women who serve in uniform but had harsh words for the political leaders that recklessly put those brave Americans in danger. "In an effort to appear 'strong' too many American political leaders have pursued worthless, irresponsible, and feckless maneuvers that only serve to strengthen our nation's enemies and perpetuate the notion that violence can solve problems."

"The United States spends more on our military than the combined national defense budgets of China, India, Russia, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Japan, and South Korea, most of which are America's allies," said McCormick. "U.S. national security in the 21st century relies on military power and diplomatic muscle that ultimately depend on a vibrant and healthy economy, but our leaders seem oblivious to the importance of these matters as they cater to their campaign donors and destroy the foundations upon which America was built."

"A rapidly growing debt will undermine our economic growth, military strength, and global leadership while hyper-partisanship and political neglect for American workers will cripple our national unity, but due to corporate corruption and methodical misinformation, many citizens can remain blissfully distracted as the whole world crumbles," said McCormick, who said too much focus is wasted on distractions while the political establishment ignores urgent threats like global warming, drug-resistant pathogens and an alarming increase in American in poverty.

The United States launched at least 251 military interventions between 1991 and 2022, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.