Making Friends Of Fiends!

[HARDCORE]

The United States has always been a nation to extend the hand of friendship and our open pocketbooks to those who seek to destroy us. It has also been our tendency to embrace and glorify a villain, while at the same time, we entrap many of our own, worthy and deserving citizenry, veterans included, within bureaucratic iron maidens!

I have said it before, and I will say it until Hell itself freezes over: "We have too many in government who act out the parts of domestic conservatives and foreign liberals, both at the same time!!"

In this vain, ?NO ENEMY? has ever (really) lost a war against the United States! Oh, they may get their ears slapped back, at least up until the mid Twentieth Century, but in the end they all emerge far stronger economically that they were to begin with! And not since the Pirates of Tripoli have we been forced to pay tribute to any threatening entity! ?But that was then, and this is now!? (ALAS)

Nowadays, like the ?Mouse That Roared?, going to war with Uncle Sam is indeed financially rewarding, save to those conscripts who do the actual fighting. Hell, one has but to view the likes of Japan, Germany, and Iraq, to come to that conclusion. The only real winners in these conflicts were the despots, foreign and financially domestic alike!

On the home front, those who deal in the implements and rewards of war, the Daddy Warbuck Types like Halliburton etc., increase their already vast fortunes by growing their booty in a blend of blood and tax money - "The most productive of all economic fertilizers!"

"And as for the losers themselves, why Hell, they are usually in far better shape after signing (or not) the instrument of surrender!!" More than can be said for We The People!!

And yet, there are those who literally adore the boot that kicks them. Intelligent types for the most part, who feast upon the painfully immoral leavings of liars and users, politicians one and all!

But what of the little guy - the fellow or gal who got unwittingly wrapped up in the turmoil, shed the blood and tears, and then was cast asunder when the need abated? The fellow or gal who eternally trusts and believes, only to be snickered or spit at during the final curtain call? The trooper who gave his or her all, and then was quickly forgotten while billion$ were poured into foreign toilets?

I guess that what gets me the most, however, is the fact that we never seem to learn from past, painful experiences! Not so long, it seems, as the political hucksters retain their glib tongues, their polished facades, their financial backing, their relentless spin, and a never ending bucket of bull shit!

?SEE YOU IN NOVEMBER!! - Will it be deja vu, or a new age of truth & enlightenment?? :cd:

VERITAS

[the humper]

Poignant post. As to "new age and enlightenment" that depends on what the meaning of "IS" is...........
SF
NC

[revwardoc]

One lesson we did learn from the past was the post-WWI era. The European powers came to the conclusion that Germany was the main cause of the war so, motivated by the appalling loss of life and property, they decided to make Germany pay retribution for those losses by charging it hundreds of millions of dollars (which it didn't have) and taking their overseas colonies. As a result Germany sought revenge for what it considered mis-treatment by the Allies and played upon those emotions leading to the rise of Nazism and fascism. Regarding the lost colonies and lands, Germany used the excuse of protecting German citizens and businesses to "reclaim" the Sunderland region of what was then Czechoslovakia to send in troops. Had Germany (which really wasn't the cause of the war) been allowed to rebuild, WWII might not have happened.