I think I heard somewhere that the U.S. has more than a thousand military bases throughout the world and I suspect many of them are located in the Middle East. We as a country seem to be so fixated on telling others how to live that we spend huge amounts of money and our citizens’ lives trying to do just that.  Here are some words about that: Every year the United States seems to be torn between further retreat from the Middle East and deeper military involvement in it. Over the past four decades, America has bombed pharmaceutical plants in … Continue reading How America has waged an eternal war in the Middle East

From the title it is hard to determine where this post is going. We can be wrong about almost anything in this life and there seems to always be someone around to alert us of that fact. If we get something set in our minds that just isn’t true then we are the worst kind of wrong. But… that is not where this post is going. :) Finally, here is the full question,  were we wrong to separate from mother England, especially through  violence? Looking back with hindsight it is always easy to judge the past by today’s criteria.  I … Continue reading Were We Wrong??

It’s an incantation repeated among Obama’s neocon critics: the Iraq surge worked; things were going swimmingly until we withdrew; the same thing will happen in Afghanistan if we pull out completely. Let’s assume it’s true, that we could keep peace and order in these countries if we kept tens of thousands of troops (or more) on the ground. Here’s my question: Why on Earth would we do such a thing? How does it serve American interests to spend vast quantities of blood and treasure serving as a national police force for countries on the other side of the globe with … Continue reading Obama’s Neocon Critics…

a world that is boiling over in violence and cut-throat theocracy makes me nostalgic for the days it was merely “simmering in resentment and tyranny Source: How the refugee crisis is teaching us the value of Hussein, Mubarak, and Gadhafi Don’t we all wish for the “good old days” when Saddam ruled with an iron fist and as a result kept the lid on the Middle East.  Yeah his bravado rankled many but we for the most part just ignored him. He did kill thousands of his own people to maintain control but millions have been killed in the aftermath … Continue reading The Good Old Days…

This post is a continuation of my story about my father and his early years. I know there there millions of families that have been seriously affected by all the wars we have been involved in during my lifetime. Some grievously damaged, some to a lesser extent. I see too many people who are still living with the wounds of my generation’s war and that is Vietnam. They can’t let go of their feeling and seem to live them almost daily. To what extent my father’s war time experiences effected the family is hard for me to grade. Dad graduated from … Continue reading War and Families…

If it were challenged by Russia, how important is Estonia’s sovereignty to you? Would you kill and die for it? Send your children to do so? Would you risk the nuclear annihilation of your civilization? Is your gratitude for use of Estonia’s airspace during the war on terror that great? SOURCE: Don’t save Ukraine – The Week. The publication “The Week” is becoming a favorite of mine. It is from a British organization so it lends a different viewpoint than most traditional U.S. sources.  It seems to have the same contrarian philosophy as me. When we take away all the … Continue reading Is It Worth It???

If we can just let other people alone and let them do their own fighting. When you get into trouble 5,000 miles away from home, you’ve got to have been looking for it.” – Will Rogers, 9 February 1932 Thanks Will for reminding us what common sense, which seems to be a rare commodity these days, sounds like…. My Republican friends like to say that they are dismantling the country’s safety net in order to rescue those trapped in it. That is the reason many give for cutting so many programs to the poor.   Well I say we need to … Continue reading Let Them Do Their Own Fighting…