If I had been suckered or conscripted into serving, or lost a son , I would be ...... well, I don't think there are words to describe the level of hostile resentment towards my own government that has been forming deep in my soul over the course of a lifetime .
Even the sight of that flag that used to give me goose bumps of pride and want to go join the military now makes me feel ashamed and sickened
Why ever would we have been in the middle east all this time? There is no real national interest for us over there except for energy, and we don’t really need that. We have enough of our own, if only we had the will.
Back in the 70s when I was first awakening to this crap I was pondering the dream that there was intelligence behind all this, and together with the peak oil theory, we were strategizing to have them run out of oil and then we would be the only ones left with our untouched resources and able to charge whatever we wanted.
I was naive back then. Today I tend to be “never attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance.” Certainly in politics (and company middle management).