Being a Patsy Sucks

Watching TV, we saw helicopters over the Embassy in Saigon taking American personnel out of Viet Nam. We declared victory and left. We had replaced the French in the war. No one replaced us - that is, other than the North Vietnamese, with whom we had been at war. The challenge was that we would return our troops back to the United States, but the result was that our men and women who returned were greeted with despicable treatment. Victory was not easily accepted.

Our country should have known better. We then learned that we should avoid war at all costs, except when there was nothing else to do, and the world decided that we primarily should do their job for them so they would be able to condemn us for doing it. We really had nothing else to do since most of the economy was overseas, and the rest of our economy was being stolen at home by our respectable financial geniuses. Financially the rest of the world now seems to be catching up with our financial failures. We can teach them about bailouts - hopefully, we can teach them to do it without using American money.

So, here we go. Rather than wait until the end of my Commentary, let me say right now that the United States should immediately get the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan and withdraw our troops and equipment together with our nation-building incompetency, winding down at he earliest possible moment without setting up elusive and meaningless time tables for public relations purposes.

This does not mean that we leave with our tails between our legs. It means that we have had enough double talk, and we have been suckered into providing bribes to our "friends" in both countries so that they don't make deals with those we are supposedly fighting to bring stability in the area.

Our returning troops can be immediately deployed to clean up the effects of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and our other infrastructure needs. The thought of building our own Nation is unique and interesting and is worth trying. We could even remedy the remaining problems of Katrina and use defense dollars to do it.

Vice-President Biden initially made a suggestion to resolve the Iraq situation by breaking up the nation into three parts [Shiite, Sunni, and Kurd] with a central government. Now, it was a good approach then and is worthy of being in the forefront as the solution.

We could even make use of that approach geopolitically - we have had good relations with the Kurds. They are an autonomous region so that we would be in the position to turn the tables on Iran and Turkey by supporting Kurdish desires to expand their area by consolidating the Kurdish areas in Iran and Turkey into the Iraqi area--or even form a new Kurdish nation. We could even do that without sending in any American troops - only a surge of support and ideas - a battle plan without IEDs.

Anything we provide in the area must have a material benefit to the United States without shedding American blood. For example, any assistance we give to Pakistan must be conditioned on our government knowing exactly what nuclear weapons they have with a defined measure of actual US control attached to it. They have sold nuclear procedures on the black market to the world’s detriment.

Everyone in the area has been playing geopolitics with us as though we are children although, to be honest, we have been acting like children. We prance around as the sole major superpower with troops we can send out to meet global demands. We also can claim another first position as the world's greatest debtor.

A major part of our industry has been outsourced, but no one has equaled our export of our military prowess and American blood. We have learned that the only approach to be employed is a regional one, such as the one we are part of in the Korean conflict. Can you imagine what the result would have been if there was such a regional Middle East group dealing with Iran over these many years - they would have had to do their own dirty work? At least they would not have been sold missiles, defense packages, centrifuges and all the other goodies for war.

Now the reports come that those we have been supporting are looking to enter into understandings with the Taliban - splitting the spoils. A number of years ago, on a visit to NATO, an American official spoke of spending a part of his youth with his father, an American official in Afghanistan. He told of battles between warlords resulting in the serious defeat of one warlord - but actually ending with the embrace of the warlords and the combination of their forces into one group to oppose other warlords. With such past understandings of the mystique of a way of life - shouldn't we feel stupid for our surges? And shouldn't we get the hell out of there now - when we realize that we should not have been there at all?

Shouldn't we change our approach [we had an election which apparently was based on change]? How about adopting the approach of benefiting from our change? We should immediately assert our ability to avoid being played as fools. The two non-Arab Islamic nations have been jerking us around to their benefit, and we have played from our weaknesses in being submissive in seeking sanctions with Russian and Chinese support and consent while Russia has contracted to build nuclear reactors in both Iran and Turkey.

We should be able to accomplish such a new realistic approach of coming home and reducing the world's dependency on our largesse instead of continuing to be played for fools looking to be loved. Obama likes to make speeches. Just think of the speech Obama's staff can write for him - it can deal with CHANGE from world community building to American community building. Yes, we can!!!