If we leave it to politicians to decide when and where the flower of our youth must die and be buried, we are putting ourselves in the devil’s hands. For they are not guided by reason or moral compunction; they are motivated by their moneyed donors and voter pressure. But we as voters are, unhappily, guided and moved by the slick tongues of our respected politicians, who promise much but deliver little, when not actually gouging us.
We have heard the argument that if we leave too soon these barbaric countries will pounce on their neighbor’s jugular in civil war, and we’ll have a holocaust on our hands. Unfortunately, whenever we leave whether today or ten years from now, they are going to do exactly that anyway. With those countries overflowing with any number of different religions and sects, and each hating and having hated the others for centuries, because their absolute truths clash with each other, there will be no peace so long as there isn’t a “higher power” [not God but a military force imposed by a “savior,” a strongman dictator as per custom, including the American military] to control them.
We [gullible Americans] were sold a phony bill of goods, which told us that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and was on the verge of launching them all over the neighboring vicinity and even landing on our shores, like on the Twin Towers. We were lied to, as per custom, and the quick easy pickings that was to end in no more than a fortnight is still very much with us after about a decade as the body bags and flag-covered coffins attest to as they arrive “back home” regularly from that (coveted) oil-filled land where many of our “missing-in-action” boys will lie under the sands for as long as there are sands there.
When our president said, “It was worth it” after he was caught in his lie – that there were no WMD – the new plan was to bring peace, democracy, and Christ to all these primitive savages with bombs, missiles, and nuclear power, as we have done in bringing peace, democracy, and Christ to Iraq after a decade of Christian love and diplomacy. One of our current president’s major mistakes was to continue the war started by his predecessor in Afghanistan. Rather than set an example for our future policies in that area of the world, we have gotten deeper into the morass, by sending even more troops and imposing our will on Pakistan. As if our meddling stopped there, we are angling for more entanglements in Iran and North Korea with the same fear tactics of disallowing nuclear power in foreign hands. After all, how can we trust anyone but ourselves, since we are the only reasonable and honest people?
Now, it is clear that neither Bush nor Cheney, or Obama is going to send his own children to the front lines. For anyone who believes in the tales being preached by our political leaders and wants to delay returning our boys immediately, he should volunteer his sons and daughters tomorrow morning to carry on this holy crusade. We know only too well that talk is cheap. Let’s put our blood (children) where our mouth is. It would seem the Christian (and truly American) thing to do is “love our neighbor as ourselves” and let him decide what he wants to do with his life. In the case where our neighbor (country) is governed by a dictator, we work with him, not destroy him because we don’t agree with him. After all, would we like to have any country to meddle in our internal affairs, or control us [supposing it had the power to do so], just because it didn’t agree with us or like how we live? Well, where is the Golden Rule we give so much lip service to?
In short, every day we prolong these highly costly and fruitless wars even one day longer, whatever our self-serving politicians say, every dead American [and if we were truly human, we would count every Arab killed as well] will be on our alleged conscience. Or have we forgotten that we’ve been saying for so long that we have one?
