“It is also about protecting the national interests of the US in a strategic region of the world.”
Oh okay. Go tell that to Corporal Joe Blow in a bar and he will probably punch you in your wolfowitz mouth. Soldiers don’t care about oil...they just want to know that their efforts are worthwhile. And when they are eighty years old, they can look back and remember the people they helped, not whether gas is under 3 dollars a gallon. I’m sorry but you sound like a walking, talking, think tank. Of COURSE, oil is a part of it. But the football coach doesn’t walk in the locker room at half-time and talk about how a win would make him the winningest coach at Haley High. Instead he rallies those boys that they NEED to win, MUST win, right now, for them, themselves, to look back in fond rememberance that they gave it their all.
I served as a naval officer for eight years, including a year in Vietnam and another 8 months off the coast. I have some appreciation for the perspective of Cpl. Joe Blow.
And when they are eighty years old, they can look back and remember the people they helped, not whether gas is under 3 dollars a gallon. I’m sorry but you sound like a walking, talking, think tank. Of COURSE, oil is a part of it. But the football coach doesn’t walk in the locker room at half-time and talk about how a win would make him the winningest coach at Haley High. Instead he rallies those boys that they NEED to win, MUST win, right now, for them, themselves, to look back in fond rememberance that they gave it their all.
I am almost 64. I don't want to see us repeat in Iraq what we did in Vietnam. It is a sad legacy that impugned the sacrifice of so many brave Americans and Vietnamese and allowed the Communists to seize the South and oppress them to this very day. We weren't defeated militarily, but at home by a Dem Congress and treasonous fools like John Kerry who testified before Congress in 1971 calling fellow veterans murderers, junkies, and criminals. He also asked the queston, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
If we don't accomplish our mission in Iraq, this will be the second time that those in our military will have been part of a defeat. Looking back nearly 40 years, it is still painful, especially given the sacrifice of so many. There is nothing worthwhile in defeat.