US Involvement in the Middle East

Why are we still in the Middle East? 

We went into Afghanistan to hunt for terrorists, specifically Osama bin Laden.  He is dead now, thanks to Seal Team 6.  No thanks to Pakistan’s useless government.  So that reason is gone.

We went into Iraq because “they have weapons of mass destruction” and Saddam Husain was a nutty SOB who wouldn’t hesitate to kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.  So we went in, found no weapons, hunted his but down in a hole somewhere….  Hell, he was tried, convicted, and executed several years ago now, so that reason is gone, too.

There were rumblings in Libya, so Obama decided we needed to “help”.  So we shot some missiles around the countryside.  Of course, since he didn’t sent in any ground troops, he said he didn’t have to take it to Congress for approval, which is complete horse dung any way you slice it.  He took military action foreign controlled areas.  The War Powers Act, where he drew the authority to command our forces to take that action, also requires him to get a justification ready to present to Congress as to why he believed those actions were necessary, and allow them to vote on whether or not to continue those or further actions.  Congress has the power to declare war, not the President.

Then there’s the freak shows running around in various African nations, killing entire villages in the name of Christ.  So we send troops in there, but not to do anything.  No, we sent troops in the train their people.  What?  Our armed forces are now training other nations armed forces? 

Who’s paying for all this adventurism to far off places?  We, we are, of course, by printing more money that’s nearly useless now.  $15 TRILLION in debt.  That’s $15,000,000,000,000.  That’s a hell of a load of zeros, don’tcha think?  But we’re still printing more money, blowing crap up in other countries, and telling them how to manage their affairs.

Since we helped the Brits overthrow the Democratically Elected leader of Iran in 1953, we haven’t kept our hands out of the Middle East for a single year.  That makes it extremely easy for people there to decide to hate us.  They are urged to hate us by their governments and political groups repeatedly.  Daily.  They are suffering because we put sanctions on nations in the Middle East that don’t run things the way we tell them too, but the people in power won’t go without, so it trickles down.  The average person in many places are so dirt poor that they would kill to come here and live life like one of our homeless. 

Yet we continue the sanctions against these nations, because they don’t do exactly what we tell them.  We cause their people to suffer and to hate us.  We maintain an armed, threatening presence at their borders, if not right smack dab in the middle of their nation.  We say we’re there to help them, and we try to “win the hearts of the people” by handing out bottled water.  Then shooting at them.  We are putting our own sons and daughters in danger to force another nation to do what they don’t want to do.  We lose loved ones every day, and we talk about how they died “defending” our nation.

Defending against what?  A nation that wanted to rule itself? A people that were dirt poor and starving because of our sanctions?

We send out troops out to die because our government wants to play power games with other nations and tell them how to live.  Our troops, our citizens, Middle Eastern residents, and freedom suffer the consequences of our leaders lust for power and control.