Just think about it. But we're not supposed to. We are supposed to think that countries on the other side of the world have no higher ambition than to attack the US.
Think back to 1964 when the US was attacked (sic) by a vicious (sic) enemy, according to president Johnson. The president claimed Vietnam made a vicious unprovoked attack on a US ship travelling peacefully in international waters. It was the familiar pattern. The president can not call in the main military, that requires congress. But the president can request covert ops, and for a few months before the Gulf of Tonkin Incident there had been covert ops, and some people we hired were captured, but that story wouldn't garner much sympathy. Then to an attack our covert people made on a radar station came retaliation and clear evidence we could use. The evidence was clear, one bullet of just over 1/2 inch was found stuck in some metal on the USS Maddox. And they got the public all revved up and we had a reputation to protect, and we got the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed and went to war and lost 58,000 including many drafted men who didn't want to be there and killed over 3,500,000 Vietnamese and blew so much money on weapons we had to go off the gold standard in 1971. Maybe we would have lasted a while longer without that expensive war.
And then we had to defend ourselves against Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Libya, and Syria and now allegedly Russia as well and a whole bunch of other countries. Why is the Vietnam War relevant? Well, we felt threatened by a country we had been provoking for a few months, but then claimed had made an unprovoked attack on us. Sound familiar?
There it is, stuck in the USS Maddox is the bullet, a result of a vicious and unprovoked attack and justification for a major war
It might be better if we focused a bit more on how we can improve life in our own country than on stirring up problems in countries on the other side of the planet. Even if there is a real problem we could ask ourselves if we understand it fully, if we are in a position to judge, and if realistically we will make the problem better or worse, and if it is likely if we leave it alone it will go away or change into a different problem. And if the only tool we have is a hammer, if what we are looking at really is a nail.
But the public thinks we have too much money and not enough problems, that's why a president's popularity goes up when he starts a war. (some people think he didn't, well remember back in 2021 when he got congress to ship lots of weapons to the capital of Ukraine? Or remember 2014 when our CIA and state department ran a coup in Ukraine, Biden was VP)
