{"id":2824,"date":"2011-03-29T08:22:37","date_gmt":"2011-03-29T08:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=2824"},"modified":"2011-03-29T08:22:37","modified_gmt":"2011-03-29T08:22:37","slug":"the_veneer_of_civilization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=2824","title":{"rendered":"The Veneer Of Civilization"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is going to be one of those rambling articles with no link, so if that’s not your cup of tea, you have my permission to stop reading now!<\/font><\/p>\n

I think our current problem with dealing with tyrannical dictators has its roots in the trauma civilized nations suffered during World War II.   <\/span>World War I was to be “The War That Ended All Wars.”  <\/span>The treaty at Versailles was such that a militant Germany would never be able to rise again (we saw how well that worked).  <\/span>In World War II, we were a little less na\u00efve.  <\/span>I believe that there were three events during World War II that truly scarred the psyche of civilized nations–the firebombing of Dresden, the pictures from the Concentration Camps, and the use of the atomic bomb.  <\/span>These three things showed civilized nations the horror of war in no uncertain terms.  <\/span>America fought the Korean Conflict with one hand tied behind its back–although we were fighting an enemy that did not have atomic weapons, rather than end the war abruptly with an atomic weapon, we fought a grinding ground war which probably cost many more lives than an atomic bomb would have.  <\/span>In Viet Nam we were afraid to fight with all our might for fear of having the Russians or the Chinese get involved–they were involved, but we still held back.  <\/span><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

I have very mixed emotions about our involvement in Libya.  <\/span>I remember Viet Nam.  <\/span>All the young men in my high school class had to choose–if they didn’t go to college, they went to Viet Nam.   <\/span>Initially we went as advisors under President Eisenhower and President Kennedy, but that was not where things went.  <\/span><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

We are providing air cover for rebel troops in Libya.  <\/span>I am told by military people I know that the only way to provide close air cover is to have boots on the ground to tell the airplanes where to drop their bombs.  <\/span>Otherwise you have civilian casualties which will be used for propaganda purposes.  <\/span>Unfortunately Arab dictators are much more skilled at the propaganda war than America is.<\/font><\/p>\n

In 1991 we put together a coalition and drove Iraq out of Kuwait.  <\/span>We didn’t go all the way to Baghdad because the coalition would not support that move.  <\/span>We paid a high price for that.  <\/span>It was impressive to end the war in 100 days and still have a coalition, but the lessons of history proved us wrong.  <\/span>I fear we are about to do the same thing in Libya.  <\/span>We need to be all in or all out.<\/font><\/p>\n

We have acquired the veneer of civilization–we oppose the killing of innocents, but not with all of our strength.  <\/span>We oppose totalitarian dictators, but we are not necessarily aware of the credentials of the people we help overthrow them.  <\/span>We have put on the veneer of civilization at the expense of actually doing the civilized thing.  <\/span>You don’t put a band aid on cancer–you operate and remove it.  <\/span>You do chemotherapy if necessary–even though it is a miserable process.<\/font><\/p>\n

My final conclusion here is that we are ignoring the source of the problem.  <\/span>Iran is a sponsor of world-wide terrorism.  <\/span>Iran funds terrorist organizations and the governments that support them.  <\/span>Until we deal with Iran, we are going to find ourselves fighting the tentacles rather than fighting the octopus.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is going to be one of those rambling articles with no link, so if that’s not your cup of tea, you have my permission to stop reading now! I think our current problem with dealing with tyrannical dictators has … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}