Skip to main content
Opine for the unpopular....

I am going to hold my opinons to a minimum on the whole war on terrorism/War on Iraq detail. I have found that my viewpoints on the Middle East are spectacularly unpopular to some people. I am, however, happy to see that in the article linked above, the protest has been thoughtful and considerate of soldiers. At one of the recent rallies a counter protest in support of the war began chanting, "We Support Our Troops!", and the protestors responded with "So do we!". Happily enough it seems that the GI is not going to bear the brunt of the feelings of angst that people have regarding this situation. Vietnam vets really go thte shaft during the 60's and 70's. Just imagine being spit upon by someone because you chose to serve and did not run to Mexico or Canada? I was also kind of puzzled to see that some of the protestors were saying, "Oust Saddam--Free Iraq!" I do wonder whether or not people know that the problems in teh Middle East will not go away and cannot be ingorned. When I was in the first Gulf War, it could easily be seen that the people of Iraq are sick of Hussein, however, common sense would dictate that they not rise up in opposition to him or else they will face certain death. Hussein and the Ba'ath party only control the middle third of Iraq, but that is where all of the resources lie. I for one don't want to lose focus on the hunt for Al Quaeda, and personally I really don't think that bringing them to trial is the answer. I think that they need to be hunted down and killed. Many liberal pundits feel that this is how we, "create enemies". Actually it is isn't. We tend to create enemies by supporting people when we need them, and leaving them hanging when we don't. The Peshmerga, (Northern Iraqui/Kurdish Guerilla fighters), just knew that we were going to March on into Baghdad back in 91', so they decided to attack Hussein on their own immediately after the Cease Fire with us was called. Hussein started handing their ass to them immediately thereafter and that is why we were in Iraq for so many days after we pushed him out of Kuwait. We had to make a safe zone so the Kurds could excape safely. I personally saw many Kurds who were slaughtered between Basrah and the Euphrates after the Gulf War was over. I also saw, and helped clean up the bodies that littered the ground all along Highway 8 from Doja all the way up to the Border. I know that there will be a terrible death toll if we fight Hussein again, and I am not speaking of terrible in the attrition/statistician scope. I mean that when the first soldier dies the battle, in my estimation, can be deemed as costly. Costly, but not unnecessary.

I tried to repost this blog message, but I am getting a lot of errors I will try again soon. The original post was done several days ago and I needed to make some changes.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Being an Officer...a Black one.....is sometimes hard. [Howard Rollins from "A Soldier's Story"] Sometimes being an Officer is difficult....not because of hard tasks, short timelines, or all of the worries involved in the care of your Soldier's, but the aura of professionalism and objectivity that you must display at all times. There have been many times that I have wanted to make a comment, yell, cuss at someone, or otherwise let my personal feelings be known about a subject, but unfortunately I could not because of my position. Let me tell you about two incidents that bothered me in particular. I was in Dallas Ft. Worth airport waiting to catch a flight on the last leg of my TDY trip to help a returning unit at Ft. Sill. As I went to my gate, I saw 4 Sailors in their black uniforms gathered at the gate...one was large and white, the other three were black. There was very little room, and many of them were standing intermingled with civilian airline passengers...
One day and one half... I just woke up in my hotel room after a night of fun and good times with my wife at 4th Street Live. I glanced out the window, and realized that I was facing the sullen reality that I have today and tomorrow on leave, and that Tuesday means the end of my contact with my family for a great while. I have approached this time on leave with the solid intent of not concentrating on how much time I had left, but rather the quality of the time that I was using. Somehow, it just didn't work like I thought that it would. I have noted that these past two weeks have flown by, much quicker than any other two weeks that I have experienced in my life. If deployment were to go like this, the time wouldn't seem so unbearable. But, nonetheless I suppose that I need to get myself prepared for the inevitable. The reality is that my oldest son Devon who just finished the seventh grade will be starting his Freshman year of High School once I get back. Robbie who just ...
Sometimes I wish I were back..... Back in what is familiar. The sights, the sounds, the stench, the heat, the utter drudgery of Southwest Baghdad. Now that I have been back for over six months I wish that I could go back. I wish I could go back and do it all over. Because maybe if I did something different over there, things would okay over here.....