“America never once GOT IT RIGHT” - Defense Secretary Robert Gates
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“America never once GOT IT RIGHT” - Defense Secretary Robert Gates
In an address to the cadets at West Point Gates quoted Gen McArthur when McArthur advised President Kennedy not to expand our involvement in Viet Nam.
“Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General [Douglas] MacArthur so delicately put it.”
Gates continued and said the following:
“And I must tell you, when it comes to predicting the nature and location of our next military engagements, since Vietnam, our record has been perfect,” he quipped. “We have never once gotten it right, from the Mayaguez to Grenada, Panama, Somalia, the Balkans, Haiti, Kuwait, Iraq, and more – we had no idea a year before any of these missions that we would be so engaged.”
For all you Republican right-wing nut-jobs demanding we attack Iran let me repeat:
“We never once GOT IT RIGHT!”
This is the way many top Defense and State Department people leave office. They claim to be changed men. They suddenly become reasonable and tell the truth, but their successor comes in the way they did, full of the military propaganda that we must attack someone, maybe anyone. After all America needs war and killing, that is what we do best.
We can’t help it, it is our nature. When confronted we attack. We are like drunks that can’t get clean, addicted to war. We go through dry out and pledge not to start another war, but as soon as an opportunity appears we fall out the wagon. We start the fear mongering, start the hate campaign and then the bombings begin and the invasion that will only last a few months and will be over before you know it.
Remember the LIES of the Bush gang; “the Iraq War will be over in six months and the oil will pay all the bills for the war.”
Mark my words we will start another war and it will come soon. The military, the Israelis and the Republican neo-cons are pushing for an attack on Iran as I write.
At some point we will have to yield to our addiction. America was born in war and we have been in at least one war my entire lifetime. Most of these wars were wars of choice. No one attacked us. No one was a real threat to invade and conquer America.
The idea that because a group of criminals (mostly Saudis) bombed us we had to invade anyone was and is total non-sense.
The idea that Iran represents a real threat to America if it gets the bomb is total non-sense. Only right-wing Republican crazies, Israel, the military and the war profiteers want this war. I should say that a major reason I think America will attack is ISRAEL. Don’t forget that our major international commitment is to ISRAEL. We will do whatever they tell us to do. We have supported their illegal settlements, their theft of Palestinian land, their immoral and illegal war in Gaza and we even allowed them to attack the US Liberty and kill American sailors.
If Israel says we must attack Iran – America will attack Iran.
America needs to try another approach. We need to bring our troops home, reduce not increase the number of foreign military bases, reduce our military spending and leave the rest of the world alone.
We need to stop trying to run the world and stop telling everyone what they can and can’t do. We need to butt out.
We also need to stop supporting dictators and start walking our talk. No more support for any government that isn’t a democracy.
What say you? Am I right?
T read more click here http://hubpages.com/profile/thejcrevelator2
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Forgot to mention that one of the items prohibited by Bush's sanctions was the chlorine needed to purify water. This deliberate poisoning greatly increased the number of innocent Iraqis who died. Since Bush was quoted as saying he always prayed to god about all major decisions, we must assume that god told him to target muslim women and children. Does this sound like the god you claim to know? It sounds to me like a mass murder who continued to look for new and exciting ways to kill and torture Muslims.
SP,
Thanks for reading and for your comments...
Great hub! Bring the troops home now! Enough war! America can't even fix its own backyard. There is poverty, homelessness, bankruptcy and drug wars going on here and the leadership of this country is pouring trillions of dollars into wars. Just think what all that money could do for the economy if it wasn't all being funneled into defense contracts with big corporations that only know how to produce weapons. Iran - and now Libya? If the country is as broke as the politicians keep saying it is - then stop fighting the world's wars. Peace
AMW,
Thanks for reading and for your comments...
Stump Parrish Level 2 Commenter 14 months ago
These wars will not stop for one reason, those people we attack most often are the very people we put in power. We are setting up regimes in part to guarantee a steady supply of people to attack.
This country spends billions of our tax dollars setting up governments that we will spend billions of dollars fighting in the future. Those in Afaghanistan we are fighting today are the same ones we equipped to defeat the Soviet Union. We proved to the world that a small well equipped army could defeat a super power in this country. We proved that a super power couldn't defeat these people and our very next step was to attack them.
Bush Senior's deliberate poisoning of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians was one of the primary reasons stated by Bin Laden for the attck on 9/11. By continuing to target innocent civilians in this country, our military industry is gauranteed an on going supply of people who hate us enough to attack us directly.
This problem is compounded by the number of people in this country who simply don't want to hear the truth about our national policy of killing women and children first and asking questions never. Our helecopter pilots strafe a wedding party being held at night and all but 3 of the 48 killed are women and children. The list of atrocities committed by our government is quite long. Wiki leaks releases the truth about what out government has been doing for years and Americans everywhere are upstet that someone told them the truth. Bush stated the reason he cancelled an appearance in Denver due to his refusal to be at the same event as someone who has done so much harm to America. Bush intentionally bombed water treatment plants and power plants after being informed that diseases would kill untold numbers of Iraqis. This didn't cause America any harm. What caused America harm according to Bush was the fact that wikileaks told the truth about our government to the people of this country. Killing isn't wrong, only telling the truth about who did the killing, and how much killing they did is wrong. Most Americans agree with this statement and still have themselves convinced they remain able to think for themselves.
//For all you Republican right-wing nut-jobs demanding we attack Iran let me repeat: “We never once GOT IT RIGHT!”//
That statement made my day when I read it. America has been at war for close to 4/5 of it's existence and this golden calf that the Republican Party worships in front of, wont be sacrificed anytime soon. At least not while there are still innocent women and children to kill for profit.
Bush also gauranteed years of conflict when he allowed our armies to stand by and watch the destruction of centuries of history and culture. The American soldier's history of stealing Iraqi artifacts and the intentional destruction of historical and religious sites wont upset Iraqi citizens in the least. The right must assumes it's a privledge to have your national and religious history destroyed by christians. They certainly dont feel it is a good enough reason to attack what they feel is a christian nation. How dare the Muslims get upset at having the entire way of life destroyed by America?
If a country came into America and poisoned 100,000 citizens I believe the rest of us would be a bit upset, don't you? I also believe we would find a way to respond with violence. You know, we might actually be able to find 12 or 13 fundamentalist christians to hijack some air planes and fly them into a couple of buildings. The rest of the country would cheer this reaction. What is different between this senario and 9/11? The people doing the attacking and those being attacked. We would have every right to resond the same way Bin Laden responded in the minds of most Americans. No other country has this right of course.
Voted up, Peace,