Insert Country Joe and the Fish Chant Here

While surfing blogs yesterday, I came across one by a young Canadian (today is Remembrance Day up north) and he was commenting that although he made an especial point to pick up and wear the poppy in his lapel, he wasn’t able to support the current war.

I’m in touch with that. I’ve had exceedingly mixed feelings about the war. Kerry asked during the debates “How can you ask someone to be the last man to die?” Well, Senator, the same way you ask someone to be the first. With a clear and steady voice that belies the writhing knot in the pit of your stomach.

As I recall, we were in a hell of a bind at the time. Schroedinger’s Cat was chairing the foreign policy committees. Hussein might and might not have had WMD or the facilities to create them. He was certainly posturing as if he did. He had committed atrocities against his own people. His sons were just as bad. And we were certainly not on his Duhl Hijja card list. Go, or no go?

It costs big bucks to maintain military alertness. For one person in the field, there are ten people at desks making sure stuff goes where it needs to be when it needs to get there. And ramping up and rattling sabers does not achieve permanent results. (Libya is a glorious exception—and even then, Qdaffi did not shut down until we actually mobilized into Afghanistan.) Go, or no go?

Now, the point has been made, and I will reiterate, that Afghanistan came to us. We chose to go to Iraq. It will not surprise me when the memoirs come out if there is something mentioned about taking care of unfinished business from back in the daze of Desert Storm. I only and sincerely hope that leaving Bin Laden in Afghanistan does not come back to bite us the same way that leaving Hussein in Iraq did ten years ago.