I noted that, during the Monday night Republican debate, we are beginning to see conservative candidates coming around to the idea that we need to bring our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. I am heartened by this movement. I've been writing against America's attempt to nation build in the Muslim world since the first day of the Iraqi invasion.
My perspective of our Middle East adventures comes from several sources. Having served 22 years in the military, to include three tours in Vietnam, I am well aware that the military always pays the price for foreign policy mistakes. 65,000 of us died over there and several hundred thousand returned without legs, arms, or plagued with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Most of us were rewarded for that effort by being spit on in the face by our fellow citizens, and, in 1996, having our VA hospital care jerked out from under us through Clinton's "means testing" VA. Anyone who makes over $24,000 per year are not eligible for VA care now.
I also developed great skepticism for any efforts to democratize a Muslim society and have often wondered how either Bush or Obama could conclude that it is even feasible.
Of course, the will to export democracy or any concern for our military has always taken a back seat to the "dollar factor". Thankfully, more and more pols are coming around to the realization that, with a $15 trillion dollar deficit and thirty percent of our citizens hurting, perhaps we can no longer afford the two trillion dollars we have spent on war making and economic assistance to two corrupt Muslim regimes who hate us.
So, let's withdraw our troops from the Middle East, use the budget savings to re-build our nation and deploy about 20,000 of those troops on our southern border. Let's upgrade our port and airport security and concentrate our defense where we are most vulnerable. Let's also spend a little of those war savings to take care of our troops who have endured four or five combat tours in a single military term of enlistment.
I'm convinced that the greatest support for Middle East war comes from those who do not understand the horrors of war, nor the despicable manner our military veterans are treated when they have fought as they were asked to do.
The bottom line is I'm tired of having our military, both active duty and retired, jerked around by politicians looking to satisfy a particular constituent group. If the pols were going to war themselves there would be a hell of a lot fewer wars.
2 comments:
Just, the main reason I left the military is the fact that I saw the writing on the wall. I foresaw the demise of the USSR due to Afghanistan, and I observed our desert related military exercises increase, along with the general prepping by our JTF units for desert warfare as early as 1985. Being Intelligence, I was also privy to info not generally disseminated. I knew that,given a billion Muslims, if only 1% were extremists of one sort or another, and the facts of terrorism and insurgency(you may know something of this from Nam,hey?) what a quagmire we were setting up for.
And the sad part, Grenadavet, is that we never learn the lesson permanently. I heard so many "never agains" following Vietnam and then we spend a decade and trillions of dollars trying to democratize those who will not be democratized. Sad.
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