STAR SPANGLED BANNER REVEALS AMERICANS' LOVE OF WAR

I have been thinking on this 4th of July about our national anthem. Here is the first stanza of the Star Spangled Banner written by Francis Scott Key in 1814:

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Why must our national anthem be rooted in war and fighting? Why must it glorify the "rocket's red glare," as if it were a noble thing to fire a rocket at someone, with the goal of incinerating that other person? And "bombs bursting in air," are they napalm or are they cluster bombs that especially target children?

Why must it be horrible and cruel acts of war that give "proof that our flag was still there"? Why must the United States need to go to war about once every ten years? What do we accomplish by dropping our bombs and firing our rockets? Instead of defending our "freedom," our war mongering as a nation establishes America as an invader/occupier that disrespects other countries' sovereignty and culture.

The Star Spangled Banner tells me that from from the beginning of American history as a "democracy," many Americans have considered warfare to be just and right, provided that the United States goverment and its political leaders deem it a "defense of freedom." No wonder small minds like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney think they can engage in preventive and or preemptive war as a national right. The result is that we now are in danger from elected madmen who are on the verge of employing the armed forces of the United States against Iran, Iraq, North Korea, China, Russia . . . (pick one or several of these as you will).