I understand that a militia is needed to provide for the common defense. But why can't we limit the scope of our armed forces to defending our soil and our borders? Why do we have to meddle in the affairs of so many other countries? Why do we insist on nation building?
Why did we have to send our fighting men and women to Vietnam, Cambodia, Somalia, Panama, Grenada, Iraq and Afghanistan?
Remember the "Domino Theory?" We had to stop the Communists in Vietnam or all the other countries would become Communistic, just like falling dominoes. Well...that hasn't happened, has it?
We invented the Gulf of Tonkin incident to propel us into a war that saw 58,267 American soldiers killed; 303,604 wounded in action and 1,711 MIA. And that's just the Americans. Between the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, over 1 million men were killed. And there were over 200,000 South Vietnamese killed.
For what?
We invented WMD's and falsified evidence to justify invading Iraq the second time. (This time under Bush the Younger.) I guess we are in Afghanistan because we were pursuing UBL. (Even though we discovered he was living in Pakistan.) Undoubtedly, our government will develop some other fallacious reason to attack somebody else before too long. It's just what we seem to do.
Meanwhile, our young soldiers are dying and suffering life-changing wounds - largely for no reasonable cause.
We remember our fallen soldiers on Memorial Day...and we should. But, like the cartoon says, perhaps the best way to honor them would be to quit sending so many others to join them.
A question borrowed from the 60's, "What if they held a war and nobody showed up?"
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