A
wise president has stepped back to examine our military involvement in
countless situations since he took office. I think he has been asking the
correct questions about our involvement in some rather insane situations!”
by Charlie Leck
by Charlie Leck
Steve Chapman, a
columnist for the Chicago Tribune,
seems to have said it best this week about President Obama: “His foreign policy
appears to reflect an understanding of our limitations.”
Now many who
would be President don’t believe our nation has limitations. They think America
is able to do whatever it wants and whenever it wants regardless of the cost in
money or human life. It just isn’t so.
It’s refreshing
to have a President who says no to our involvement in every possible situation
of conflict around the world. Chapman says it this way…
“Obama is
getting slammed for a lack of aggressiveness by crusading internationalists in
both parties – who brought us the Iraq war and the Afghan quagmire. If they
think he’s wrong, he must be doing something right.”
“You betcha,” as
we say here in Minnesota. That’s why we voted for him. We’ve had enough already
with presidents who go storming off to war at every possible opportunity. It
pleases and supports the military/industrial complex, but it does little, if
anything, for any of the rest of us.
A few of my
former high school classmates, to whom I listened in during some of their
conversations last week, hardly agree. They called Obama a “chicken-shit” and
sometimes things even worse. It’s easy for old men to call for wars that young
men must fight. It is difficult, as president, to say no to many such
situations; yet, more times than not, that’s what needs to be said. One needs
only to look at the long, long lines of injured young men and women returning
home from battle to understand what the president is feeling. It is not
cowardice. It is courage and wisdom.
Too little do we
raise the simple, yet substantive questions: “Why there? Why now?”
We need no more
decade-long, useless and unproductive wars that end without definition.
As Chapman says
in his column: “If Obama is a wimp, hail to the wimp!”
_________________________
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If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.
Like your line about the brave old men who call for wars that young men must fight. Lots of food for thought in this post. Keep them coming.
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