Charley Reese on Tragic Conflict:
I used to believe in the concept of a just war, but now I don't think there is such a thing. Every war is unjust, because so many people who usually have no connection with the conflict end up dying in it. Their deaths are papered over by the guilty political leaders with a lot of patriotic rhetoric. The fact is, however, that life in America following the Iraq War is exactly the same without Saddam in power as it was when he was in power. The only difference is that there are unfillable holes in more than 100 American families. Those who died did not do so to defend American freedom. They died to depose a dictator our president loathed.
Bingo. When I enlisted in 1988, it was not in the hopes that I would someday go to Saudi Arabia to fight one of our government's former golden boys. We knew he was going to annex Kuwait beforehand, but didn't care until it became obvious that a lot of people stood to lose billions if Kuwaiti oilfields weren't returned to their rightful owners. I wasn't protecting American freedom there. I was an instrument of corporate profit, protecting someone else's investment. I was lied to and deceived and there is absolutely no excuse.