Bring the heroes home!

It is Memorial Day here in the United States: a day when we remember the fallen heroes who protected our freedoms. For the most part I agree with that. Especially those fallen in World Wars I and II and Korea. After that, I am not sure we have fought a war so much to protect our freedoms and liberties, as we have staged military actions to better our foreign policies.

This is not a popular notion on Memorial Day. Sorry. I lost several friends in Vietnam. No way did that conflict closely approach the “fear and dreading” the Johnson and Nixon administrations fed us. The domino theory was right up there with “Trickle Down” theory of things that were never going to work. Korea was, perhaps a different animal, but I’ve never been too sure.

We then had famous wars in places like Grenada, Croatia and Somalia. (We went 2 out of three. Not bad for a superpower.) Then we were told there were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. We went hell-fire-and–brimstone into that desert country ready to purge it. And after two or three weeks President Bush declared Mission Accomplished. Never have been sure what we accomplished there.  But I know we invaded a sovereign nation that had not provoked us into invading them. To be sure a decade earlier that regime had invaded an ally of ours (read oil producing state of Kuwait) and we attacked then. But like I say, that was to shore up our foreign policy, and the only freedom we were protecting was the right for Saudi Arabia to charge us more for oil because they let us build air and ground bases in their Kingdom. Bush Senior saw to that one. We’ve been paying for it ever since.

So we didn’t find WMD-not one. So the administration under Acting President Chaney changed the tune and it was regime change and nation building – something Bush W said he was against as he ran for office. Now somewhere about here some one is going to say, “Wait. What about 9-11?” I agree.  Our foray into Afghanistan was supposed to root out the Taliban and help us find Al Qaeda and bin Laden. We eventually did. So let’s get out. Now. And quit wasting other lives. The mission truly has been accomplished.

That is the crux of my Memorial Day message. Stop Wars. Quit sending precious lives into battles that are not ours. Use our resources more wisely and less policing across the globe. Bring the troops and our money home.

Let’s give peace a chance.

If someone provokes us and threatens us – I mean truly threatens us, let’s bury them And fast. Otherwise, these protracted wars and police actions are draining the national will and treasury. But more importantly, they are taking from us wonderful men and women who sacrificed their lives to see to it that the US policy of strength abroad is carried out. And, my friends, that has very little to do with liberty at home, especially while we have things like The Patriot Act and Guantanamo staring at us in the face.

It is Memorial Day. I am proud of every American who gave their life for us. I just hope and pray our leaders will soon stop sending them into harm’s way for every little skirmish across the map.

We are safer now that bin Laden is gone. But that didn’t take 3,000 lives to pull off. We are not safer because of Iraq – in fact the opposite might be true.

I hear rumblings about Syria. I doubt we’d go in there. Little oil and lots of trouble.  Let Russia handle this one. Or China. Let’s bring the men and women who have for so many tours been abroad fighting for our nation – let’s bring them home for a rest. Let’s give WAR a rest.

And let’s try and nurture a little peace.