Source:  Editorial: Too fast to get out of Iraq? No – USATODAY.com.

Just nine days after the departure of U.S. forces, Iraq is looking more like its old self — divided, angry and threatened by civil war and dictatorship — than like the self-reliant democracy President Obama described as the troops came home.

I don’t understand why the Republicans, and even some Democrats believe that we can change thousands of years of local history in a foreign nation by occupying it with our military might.  I truly think that those who follow this tactic believe that they can turn nations into democracies in this manner. They have good but just very misguided intentions in that regard. History shows us again and again that it is not possible.

I’m absolutely sure that these well-intended guys will blame President Obama for this quick turnaround in Iraq. They will say that he did not keep our war machine there long enough. But how long is long enough? We had been there for ten years. What would it take to make all the feuding tribes of Iraq suddenly get along with one another? For the most part the Sunnis and Shiites (or like tribal groups) have been at it for hundreds of years. Our military presence was only a minor distraction for that feuding. I am not at all surprised that they are back at it again almost immediately after our withdrawal.

Moving on to a different topic our Republican friends are now on a “frugal government” rant. They insist that the government is spending too much of our hard-earned money. I agree somewhat with that statement but where to cut back is the biggest problem. They want to take the money out of  welfare, social security, Medicare, Medicaid and most other places that help our citizens.  They want to keep and even increase the amount of money we spend on our warring capabilities. I’m not sure what the primary draw is for them? Is it to maintain our overwhelming superpower status in the world or is it nation building of foreign governments as cited above? Either way they are very misguided in my mind. We should be taking care of our own instead going around the world trying to instill some sort of peace between long time foreign rivals. Let Iraq be Iraq. Sometime, probably in the distant future, they will eventually tire of hating each other in that corner of the world. When that happens peace will prevail as it did, without our help, as it did in Ireland.

The thing that saddens me the most about these nation building attempts is all the lives that are lost,  both our kids and innocent Iraqi citizens.  This war will end up much like Vietnam of my generation and countless other wars from my forefathers’ generations.  We just can’t seem to learn to keep our nose out of others problems and our kids have to pay for that consequence.  That is what truly saddens me.

But what do I know….