Re: "The Only Thing They Learn" -- does anyone else find it irritating?

On Jun 25, 8:10 am, Charlton Wilbur <cwil...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Now imagine what might happen if countries
like the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, and Japan were
*against* us rather than *with* us.

The only way that would happen is if the United States went down the
path of evil.

Well, not counting France, at least.

Of course, nuking Afghanistan - and thus causing mass death among a
civilian population that had already suffered so much under the
Taliban - would have been unfortunate. Not nuking Afghanistan seems to
have allowed Osama bin Laden to slip out to Pakistan.

The *Democrats*, for the love of humanity, have been expressing
sentiments uncomfortably similar to... let's not give a hoot about the
Pakistani government's claim that U.S. troops marching into the tribal
areas of Pakistan to collar Osama would spark a revolt there. So I
think all this hype about G. W. Bush the evil warmonger is a bit much.

I don't want a "nuke 'em all and let Allah sort them out" event to
happen. But to avoid it, we had better face up to some facts that are
so easy to avoid.

One of the first facts to face up to is that we happen to have a lot
of nuclear weapons to hand, and we even spent a lot of tax money in
producing them. Peace and safety is the return we expected from that
investment. If you and those you love are threatened, concern about
civilian casualties in far-distant lands will take a back seat.

While not responding at all to September 11, 2001, was not an option,
it certainly does seem that any military action by the United States
is extremely liable to mishandling that could inflame anti-Western
sentiment in the Muslim world. From the serious - abu Ghraib - to the
utterly trivial - Denmark - the Muslim world appears to be *very easy*
to inflame.

The troop surge is claimed to have been a success in Iraq. Noting how
*far* a draft has been off the table - even back when the Republicans
had a majority in Congress - I am worried that the ability of the U.S.
to respond to challenges might be... brittle, under some
circumstances.

On the other hand, even with a Democratic President and Congress,
something really sudden and startling - like an Iranian nuke making
its way to Israel sooner than expected - probably would unite the
nation enough to permit conscription.

John Savard
.

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