Posted on 08/13/2003 8:00:07 AM PDT by Theodore R.
The Middle East isn't vital to America? That's a new one on me.
Right, Pat.
If we hadn't been in the Philippines in 1898, none of the rest would have happened.
Sure.
Give Pat credit on this one. I predicted this would be the case even before the war began, based only on my conversations with people with family contacts in the Middle East. Every one of these people indicated that they were in favor of the war, and for no other reason than that "Saddam Hussein has to be removed from power."
In fact, I should buy a beer for the one fellow who pointed out months ago that the U.S. would find itself with no friends either inside Iraq or among its neighbors -- "Once the job is done and Saddam Hussein is gone, those people will want to throw the Americans out right after him."
Actually he didn't say the Middle East.
George Bush may prove to be a well-intentioned president who embroiled us in decades of wars in a part of the world that was never vital to America.
He was referring specifically to Iraq.
Saddam was demonstrably linked to funding suicide bombers in Israel, and too many Americans were killed in those attacks, alone.
That, among myriad other reasons, was always enough for me to want to take out that psycho-sexual maniac and his depraved family and regime.
Gee, we're alone.
GOOD!
Muslim charities right here in the U.S. have also been linked to these suicide bombings in Israel, and the Bush Administration has gone out of its way to avoid shutting these charities down. The government of this country has a vested interest in convincing people that Saddam Hussein is a bigger threat to the U.S. than our own Islamic population is.
That, among myriad other reasons, was always enough for me to want to take out that psycho-sexual maniac and his depraved family and regime.
How badly did you want to do this? Enough to enlist and do it yourself, or only enough to sit at a computer and mouth off about it?
Well, I'm a Vietnam combat veteran who also wrote the Department Of The Army on 29 SEP 2001 volunteering to return to service, but was essentially told I'm too old.
How would you know what else I might do?
I said myriad other reasons and I mean it.
There. I've "mouthed off" again.
Americans were not specifically targeted by these bombers of which you speak. They happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their deaths, though tragic were not an act of war against us.
If an American visited London in 1940 and was killed in a German air raid one could hardly say the Germans attacked America. The hypothetical American in my example voluntarily and knowingly went into a war zone.
But I am curious about one thing -- In light of the disgraceful, incompetent manner in which the civilian leadership of the United States carried out the Vietnam War, I would think a Vietnam combat veteran of all people would be more hesitant than most to see the U.S. wage a "war" like we've seen in Iraq. If anything, the U.S. action in two areas of the Middle East stand in stark contrast to each other (Afghanistan and Iraq) in terms of how to "do it right" and how to "do it wrong."
When America decided it had to be a great power of the European model and have overseas possessions we set ourselves up for conflict where none existed before. Deciding we needed bases to project force into the Pacific we annexed Hawaii, picked a fight with Spain on the pretext of human rights violations in Cuba and used that to grab the Philippines, the Marianas, etc. Already with a presence in China we became "players" and felt compelled to instruct foreign powers how to behave on foreign lands. I am not condoning Japanese expansion but if it weren't for our overseas holdings we would not have been on a collision course with the rising sun. Those who warned against Imperialism back in 1898 knew what they were talking about - it costs a lot of blood and treasure to maintain.
FMCDH
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