After a decade of war in the Middle East is it really possible that we have learned absolutely nothing?

Did we not learn the true significance of Colin Powell’s pottery statement about Iraq “If you break it you own it”?

Have we not just recently learned that after a decade in Afghanistan our influence upon the culture there amounts to nil?

Is there no message to be learned from the Iraqi’s asking us to leave completely with our forces even though the Iraqi’s feared social unrest? And no message in the Afghans revolt against America last week for the accidental burning of Korans?

Apparently none of these lessons have mattered to some in political office.

Senator McCain and others are now demanding we attack Syria with American weapons and military.

Really?

We need just one more Middle East war because we have not spent enough in our young men and women’s blood, or of our money?

We need one more example that our cultural values are so different from those of the Middle East that we can expect no more than to fight and die for their needs then be asked to leave without so much as a “thank you”.

And Syria is not even our only sabre rattling happening in our politics. The Republican presidential candidates, in their attempts to be tougher than each other and our measured responses as a nation to Middle East challenges in Iran, are outdoing each other in declaring just how badly they want to go to war with Iran for Israel.

And while these men seem excited to commit more American lives and more American money to Middle East war, do they even understand the consequences of Israel attacking Iran?

An Israeli attack would not simply be ignored by Iran. Such an attack would provoke a response against Israel from Iran, Lebanon, and Hezbollah, among others. The Israeli pre-emptive attack could in fact throw the entire ME into a regional war…a war America would be obliged to fight beside the rash Israeli’s.

A war that would increase the jeopardy of our troops in Afghanistan, Increase worldwide terrorism, create economic crisis over oil and possibly push the international economy into yet another recession.

Is not the very idea of “pre-emptive” discredited after the Bush fiasco into Iraq based upon faulty and subjective Intelligence? Now again comes Israel seeking yet another pre-emptive attack to prevent an Iranian nuke that out military and Intelligence communities says not only does not exist, but may not even be in the planning stages?

Instead of more Middle East wars shouldn’t we be bringing our troops home from Afghanistan, reducing our worldwide military imprint and saving some money to spend at home on Medicare and Infrastructure and research and energy?

We import 12 percent of our oil from the Saudi’s, and we need that oil today. But we could change that quickly with a national will for energy security.

Why not kill the Keystone pipeline and instead grant significant incentive to the construction of a refinery in the northern U.S., making export of that oil more expensive and shifting its use from the world market to the US market?

Why not begin a 5 year program to convert all U.S. government trucks to natural gas vehicles, thus jump starting the conversion process nationally. Provide tax incentives for trucks built with natural gas power and dis-incentives for oil based manufacturing of trucks.

We cannot continue to fight wars we cannot afford for causes we cannot win.

Our needs at home are great, our resources limited. It is not just the age old question of guns or butter, but wasted guns and needed butter.

Where is the political will to end the madness?

 

Jim Crawford is retired educator and political enthusiast living here in the Tri-State.