Topcat, kudos to you for having, shall we say, the male body parts to bring the subject up in the first place. History sits in final judgement of stuff like this. So let us look at Vietnam, an event that is far enough removed in time that we can get some perspective on. Vietnam is my generation-my fellow Eagle Scout buddy died over there, and numerous classmates left body parts there or didn't come back at all.
The last I checked, Vietnam was a communist country. Ostensibly, our purpose there was to prevent the countries in the region from falling, domino-like, under communist rule. For whatever reasons- militarily, political, geopolitical, we failed to do that. I'm not blaming anyone. I'm just saying there are over 58,000 names on the Vietnam wall, and my contention is those men and women, including my scout buddy, politically and militarily died in vain.
Imagine that- 58,000 men and women, many, like my friend, never had sex. Never had the joy of holding their baby. Never watched the sun set with their spouse. Never really had a chance to live, only die. For what? Maybe, in that moment of death, they found courage, or some inner strength or revelation about God that was their purpose in life. Who knows.
I predict history will cast the current conflicts we are involved in in the middle east in the same light. I seriously doubt Iraq and the other middle east countries will ever embrace the concept of seperation of church and state (as the Shah did) which is basic for a democracy and freedom to develope. I am in the process of reading the Koran- it's frightening what attitudes civilization is up against. I know there are many members of this board who are serving and have served in the middle east and have lost friends there, as I did during the Vietnam war. I don't mean to trivialize your losses anymore than you would trivialize mine. But I would place all my money on history writing off the causes as failures, because they will be.
