My ex wife just responded to my last. Here is her response, and then mine.

"Cool, but I disagree; we should have never gone to Iraq and finished “daddy’s“ job. Osama wasn’t there and all Bush really wanted was the oil and saw an opportunity to get his dirty little hands on it, is that really worth 2,000 lives, I think not. But hey we all new as soon as a republican came into office we would be back at war, history repeating itself once again.
I will be glad when he is out of office. Just my opinion."

My response:
Actually, almost every war we have fought has had a Democrat as the president. At least since the Civil War.
WW1: Woodrow Wilson=Democrat
WW2: Franklin D Roosevelt=Democrat
Korea: Harry S Truman=Democrat
Vietnam: Lyndon B Johnson=Democrat
Those were the four MAJOR wars we fought in the 20th Century.
Now one can argue that the 1st Gulf War was a major war, but that wouldn't be very accurate.
As far as protecting our oil interests, etc. That's the reason wars are fought, mostly. War is the extension of national policy. That's the way it is. What I'm getting by your response is that the war in 1991 should not have been fought, either. After all that is what was said back then. The left leaning anti Bush (older, Bush at that time) media was all over the "war is for oil" stuff. The death and rape that occured in Kuwait was conveniently overlooked by the anti war group.
Again, all I can say is, we fight wars to further our national interests. Even WW2 was fought for that reason, if one wants to dig down to the root causes. FDR cut off the oil to Japan, so Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
It's unfortunate that soldiers have to die to keep us number one. But when they enlist, they know the risk. If Kristin had not had the Scoliosis, she was ready to be a pilot in the USN. I was ready to accept her being in harm's way, to protect our country, and our national interests.
If she was killed in action, I would have been horribly sad, yet proud of her at the same time.
To juxtapose the thought process, I wouldn't be nearly as OK if she was killed in a car crash tomorrow on the streets of Iowa. We live for a reason. Protecting our country, and our lifestyle is a noble endeavor.
The reason you and I can have this sort of discussion over a distance of 2,000 miles is because the USA is in charge.
The world has been stabilized, mostly since WW2. Those who would kill us, end our life style, are the same as those who brought down the Romans in the 1st Millenium AD.
Rome had basically abolished slavery (a staple of the origination of their empire) and adopted Chrisitianity.
Here's an excerpt from a website that has more of the story:

"For years, the well-disciplined Roman army held the barbarians of Germany back. Then in the third century A. D. the Roman soldiers were pulled back from the Rhine-Danube frontier to fight civil war in Italy. This left the Roman border open to attack. Gradually Germanic hunters and herders from the north began to overtake Roman lands in Greece and Gaul (later France). Then in 476 A. D. the Germanic general Odacer or Odovacar overthrew the last of the Roman Emperors, Augustulus Romulus. From then on the western part of the Empire was ruled by Germanic chieftain. Roads and bridges were left in disrepair and fields left untilled. Pirates and bandits made travel unsafe. Cities could not be maintained without goods from the farms, trade and business began to disappear. And Rome was no more in the West."

Sounds like what the terrorists want to have happen here.
If the government cannot control the bad guys, the end is inevitable.
Our reliance on oil is a microcosm of the entire world situation. We use the resources that are available, and move on to the next.
Again, national policy is based on a pragmatic ideology of "Us before them". That's not just the USA. It's most of the relevant countries in the world.
See Ya
CC

Move On Dot Org's Latest. And My Response

Click the link. (Thanks to Michelle Malkin). See the latest crap from these idiots. Then read on:


Letter to Move On Dot Org
You guys are a joke. 2,000 dead in Iraq? How about close to 3,000 dead at the Trade Center on 9/11? What about that? Oh, I guess American lives aren't important, when the bad guys attack us, only when we attack the bad guys. Get a clue. The USA is the world's cop, like it or not. You can't change history. WW2 happened. We took up the role of world policeman, to reign in the despots and other out of control governments around the world who might start another worldwide conflict. The fact that weapons of mass destruction are now available makes our job that much more important.
2,000 dead? In what? Almost two years? In WW2 there were battles where the Marines suffered that many dead in a few hours fighting the Japanese. At Omaha Beach on D-Day (June 6, 1944 for the uninformed) the US Army suffered almost that many killed. There was no outcry by the likes of you back then. And don't tell me that everybody was afraid to speak out. That's crap. Things had to be done. A war had to be won. That's the way things go when a country is attacked. Iraq may not have been the country of origin for the 9/11 attackers. But the very fact that Iraq was there, snubbing its nose at the USA and the British by violating the cease fire agreements reached at the end of the First Gulf War, gave an impression to the world, and more importantly the Muslim World, that anything that is done to the USA is OK. That obviously encouraged the 9/11 attackers. They didn't see the USA as having any backbone. Thank you, Bill Clinton. Anyway, the only thing the Muslims understand is strength and power. It's in their book. They laugh at "negotiation". Look how Qadafi responded to our attack on his house, under the Reagan administration. Suddenly he's doing what we want. Imagine that. What a surprise.
Move On Dot Org Needs to MOVE ON. (As in GO AWAY)
Craig Clemens
Ames, Iowa
http://blogresponder.blogspot.com

I sent this to them, via their website complaint page. That was the only way to get past their gatekeepers. I doubt that I will get a response. But it helps me clear the soul.

I'll be back

CC