Some Perspective
I wonder if people have forgotten we are at war.
It used to be that war affected the lives of every citizen of the nations fighting. Now it's too easy, at least for Americans. Men and women are fighting and dying (78 just last month according to the Brookings Institute) in a distant land. This doesn't include the numbers of Iraqis involved in helping to keep the peace or the innocent civilians who are just trying to get on with their lives after we ripped their nation apart looking for terrorists and weapons.
War became unfashionable. I don't know if the idea of 'guns and butter' preceded the American penchant for fighting unpopular wars or was a result of it. If the entire nation had to be mobilized like it had been in the WWI and WWII, there wouldn't be any small, unpopular wars. The President and Congress would have to consider much more than budgets and headlines before declaring war. They would have to explain why schoolchildren would be denied free access to meat, milk, butter and eggs to support our troops. They would have to explain why merchants would have their trade relationships curtailed to guard security and lend their industries to the war effort.
Would total mobilization prevent these wars or just take away more and more rights as our leaders try to pursue these pipe dreams of being the leaders of world peace by waging war? We're making fools of ourselves. Saddam Hussein himself may or may not have known about or support the 9/11 attacks. Wanting to topple his regime may have been a good thing, but what has it accomplished? He hasn't been the leader of Iraq for more than a year and hasn't been alive for more than month now, and yet the killing continues.
Iraq did not attack the World Trade Center. There may be some Iraqis in Al Quaeda. There may be some Americans, too, from what is being said about people who are being held in prison. Iraq may have had weapons of mass destruction. The US has weapons of mass destruction. In fact, we are the only nation ever to use the atomic bomb on another nation in time of war. By that logic, we should be attacking ourselves. It's no wonder our allies look at us as warily as they do their enemies. They're probably wondering when we're going to turn on them and if they should do something to prevent it.
It used to be that war affected the lives of every citizen of the nations fighting. Now it's too easy, at least for Americans. Men and women are fighting and dying (78 just last month according to the Brookings Institute) in a distant land. This doesn't include the numbers of Iraqis involved in helping to keep the peace or the innocent civilians who are just trying to get on with their lives after we ripped their nation apart looking for terrorists and weapons.
War became unfashionable. I don't know if the idea of 'guns and butter' preceded the American penchant for fighting unpopular wars or was a result of it. If the entire nation had to be mobilized like it had been in the WWI and WWII, there wouldn't be any small, unpopular wars. The President and Congress would have to consider much more than budgets and headlines before declaring war. They would have to explain why schoolchildren would be denied free access to meat, milk, butter and eggs to support our troops. They would have to explain why merchants would have their trade relationships curtailed to guard security and lend their industries to the war effort.
Would total mobilization prevent these wars or just take away more and more rights as our leaders try to pursue these pipe dreams of being the leaders of world peace by waging war? We're making fools of ourselves. Saddam Hussein himself may or may not have known about or support the 9/11 attacks. Wanting to topple his regime may have been a good thing, but what has it accomplished? He hasn't been the leader of Iraq for more than a year and hasn't been alive for more than month now, and yet the killing continues.
Iraq did not attack the World Trade Center. There may be some Iraqis in Al Quaeda. There may be some Americans, too, from what is being said about people who are being held in prison. Iraq may have had weapons of mass destruction. The US has weapons of mass destruction. In fact, we are the only nation ever to use the atomic bomb on another nation in time of war. By that logic, we should be attacking ourselves. It's no wonder our allies look at us as warily as they do their enemies. They're probably wondering when we're going to turn on them and if they should do something to prevent it.