My own opinion is that we should do anything we can to keep out of this one. The Secretary of State seems to have that opinion also.
The Iranian nuclear program probably is intolerable, as Jim says; with one such weapon, detonated in the air above Oklahoma, they could wipe out most of the American population due to the destruction of our electrical grids. I'm not sorry to see it go, but I would be sorry to see a MEU(SOC) or a Ranger battalion deployed into this conflict.
I’m very suspicious of these wars now. I remember Anthony Zinni, general officer of the USMC, expressing his doubts that any US war in his career had been worth the lives spent on it. For years I thought that he was wrong. Watching what was done with the victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, and realizing now that Vietnam was also intentionally thrown away by Congress because it was politically hostile to success, I see that he was right. Our government is too corrupt to deserve sacrifices so costly.
The record is not good. The gov lied about the "Maine" explosion, and went to war with Spain, lied about the "unprovoked" sinking of the Lusitania and got us into a war against Germany, lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and got into a war in Vietnam, lied about the WMD in Iraq to get us into a war to remove Saddam, incidentally blaming him in some convoluted way for 9/11, while studiously avoiding the fact most of the hijackers were Saudi's. I don't see a whole lot of justification for many of wars we have been sacrificing our people for.
ReplyDeleteAnd a good case could be made for the idea we backed the Japanese into a corner before they hit Pearl.
Butler was spot on, IMO. It is a racket.
And what do we call people who run rackets?
Oh wait, there's more- we convinced Qaddafi to give up his nuke program, then we wasted him. Now that is what you call a perverse incentive.
2014, the orchestrated revolution in Ukraine?
Governments are just gangster cartels writ large, with fancy suits.
They suckered Ukraine into giving up its nukes too, with a promise that they would defend them.
DeleteNever give up your guns. Not a man, not a nation.