What?s Wrong With This Picture?

[HARDCORE]

The national media has just released figures on the requested international manpower, needed for peacekeeping duties in Iraq! If I heard correctly, the United States currently has some 150,000 pairs of boots on the ground in the ?Land of The Forty Thieves?, and the President is requesting an additional 15,000 troops from all of the other U.N. nations combined!?

It is also worthy to note that most of the military funding for United Nations (?) operations in Iraq, comes from United States coffers, as has most of the blood spilled in country thus far!! Yet through all of this and more, there are still those who chose to worship the sod that a few of those making some erroneous decisions (from afar) tred upon!

Now in no way is this a slight against any particular political party or individual! I will not, however, applaud with the blind enthusiasm of youth, any man, woman or political party, who is (in my opinion), floundering around in a purely politically motivated fashion! Someone (another opinion), who is too confused to know what to do, or too ego-clad to do it, even if they did have a clue!?

The bottom line here is that, talk as we may, beat out chests as we might, ?OUR? kids are still being wounded and dying while all that I hear on the tube, or see in the rags, is excuses, buck passing, indecision and political positioning for 2004 and beyond!

?TO HELL WITH PERSONALITIES? and those who wield them like single-edged swords! This is no video game you know, and all of the pseudo-experts on Earth can not bring back into being a single life expended through perceived political incompetence or ambition! ?The Caesars too, were ambitious!?

?And no, I am not picking on a President (past, present or future), or anyone else for that matter, but rather upon the attitude and agenda of people who should know better!!?

The brave, young kids who fight and expire in these wars, deserve to know that we support them, that the decisions being made about their survival are not vested, and that they are not expendable! These are our sons and daughters, and most are of voting age and fighting age if needs must! They are not just figures on a pad of paper or something to debate in high school! And it is indeed easy to play the part of an adolescent armchair general when dealing with someone else?s existence, or even the grieving families back home!

?Patriotism is a magnificent and sorely needed quality - foolishness on the other hand, is a tragedy at any age, no matter from wince it emanates!!?

Yes, in wars people do die, and when far removed from that death and carnage, it is easy to rationalize and defend even a faulty political ideology or those who vestedly constructed it!

And yes again, we had little choice but to eliminate the threat posed by Hussein and terrorism! But to boil, as is being done within the media, and some corners of the bureaucracy, everything down to numbers and politics, or even drum beating, especially when one is not behind the trigger or in front of the muzzle, is an exercise in futility, and not merely loyalty alone!

Again, and this is to all, - ?NO ONE IS PICKING UPON THE PRESIDENT? or anyone else for that matter! They are expressing their ?Constitutionally Guaranteed? rights, and many of those doing so - ?FOUGHT HARD FOR THAT RIGHT!!? And many of these very same people would again match into Hell for this nation and our ideals! But never, and I do mean ?NEVER?, will they give up the right to voice their approval or disapproval of a policy, an agenda, or even an individual of either party (or even nation) whom they feel to be in error!

We do not follow blindly, we do not applaud or overlook that which we feel to be wrong, and most of all, we do not pick (for lack of a better word) for the sake of picking alone! It is our right, and indeed our duty, to walk in the Sun and not to cower under any entity, in the darkness! ?Live with it, for it is what we all about!!?

However, if anyone opts instead to ask how high, when told to jump, that too is his or her right! It is not, however, that person?s right to expect or demand a silent obedience to that which one may find distasteful, offensive or un-American!!

VERITAS