Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Ike Was Right

So how do we get out of Libya? After 8 years, it is pretty damn clear that we are not getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan any time soon, if ever. So what is our plan to exit from Libya? Do we have one?

DS3_6678
Heavily armed F16 flies over my house

Again without consulting Congress, President Obama took us into another shooting "action". So much for separation of powers and all that. But seriously, does anyone believe that we will establish a no-fly zone and then leave? It seems like we took our worst military experience - regime change in Vietnam - and made it our blueprint for military action. We now have three ongoing wars, none of which are declared as such despite the "War on Terror" rhetoric, and none of which are fully budgeted. We are piling on debt not to take care of our least able or to better educate our youth or to explore alternative energy, but rather to intervene and nation-build largely to protect our oil interests.

I'm hoping our scope in Libya is as limited as the pretense states. Our presence in some capacity was needed. And yet, I have no faith in America's government to disengage from war. Ike was right, and the military industrial complex has fostered an addiction to war and the spending that accompanies it. We are not going to bankrupt America because of teachers and trade unions. We are going to bankrupt it because of the actions of chickenhawks.


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