Troops overseas might not be paid is a LIE

[aleconthelake]

Cant help it, One other thing and it has to do with why our military is and should be kept strong. It has to do with basic human nature. There is and always will be someone out there who thinks its ok to pick on or oppress the little guy the guy who cant fight back. It goes on until somebody bigger and badder but with a true heart stands up for the little guy. Sorry, but wether you people like it or not we are the biggest and baddest guy on the block. This country tried to deny that through "isolationist" policies inthe past and it it almost got our butts kicked for us royally...TWICE. Yes our government has screwed up .. a lot! over the last 50 years but bottom line we ae still the baddest on the block and we need to look out for the tired oppressed and poor all over the world. We may not like it as a people we may not want it. But for you people who have never been any place or have just seen what the goverment of other places want you to see. There are still a lot of people in foriegn places with a little education who know what this country was founded on who look at us like a giant white knight. Regular people over seas KNOW what the American dream is and they yearn for it. When you are over seas a little humility goes a long long way.

[Mark75H]

Why do we usually support those governments?

Do we need 11 aircraft carriers to do this? (Russia, China, England, France, Thailand, Brazil and India have one each, Spain and Italy sort of have 2 each). We have as many as all the rest of the world combined. This is the current US military style ... to be as armed as the entire rest of the world combined and that is still not enough.

As Eisenhower warned this is very expensive ... is Eisenhower's advice bad?

[aleconthelake]

probably not but being as we are getting to the point where we dont make anything in this country anymore maybe we should just use them 1 or 2 at a time.... I think we can agree that this country is in a major mess. God, just to have one politician with an ounce of integrity and a modicum of leadership skills who really cares about the people and the country.... Somebody who has balls enough to slap the industrial greed monsters into line... A good ego maniac like Patton for just a couple years! LOL

[aleconthelake]

As far as why do we support those governments?dont know the answer to that. I mean look what we are doing in the middle east right now! we are supporting everybody including hamas! I mean if you get right down to it, Look at Viet Nam! We supported the most corrupt puppet goverment in history! The worst part of that is, Ho Chi Minh came to us for help before Dien bien Phu! he was harvard educated! We Turned him down because he has "communist leanings!" and where did he get that? HARVARD! makes you wonder what would have happened if we had backed him.. Gee the French might have got more pissed at us..... WAAAAAAAA

[aleconthelake]

same way with this middle east mess! I hear so many people ask why the arabs hate us so much... Everybody thinks oh it s Isreal.... WWRONG! Thats a side issue! The other excuse,,oh its big oil and corporate greed aaaaaaaggggghhh! Wrong again! another side issue! They just add fuel to the fire! This is one of the issue that saudi Naval Officer and I discussed. He was actually pretty cool, very candid and very well educated. I asked him point blank why they hate us so much one night. It goes much deeper than those other two issues and back to something that happened long before either one of those issues existed.... It ties in with what i was saying about the rest of the world wanting the american dream and it dates back to the first world war and the aftermath. Before ww1 the whole middle east was basically tribal and colonized by several different european countries. lawrence of Arabia united many of the tribes to stand against the Turks (who were allied with germany and the Austro/hungarian empire) He led them to believe that after the war they would be independant and that the americans wouldnt let the europeans back in.. Well what happened at the end of the war? Once again we didnt finish the job we kissed the collective european butts and didnt stand up for the little guy they despise us for it. I thnk the question should be why does our leaders keep kow towing to the europeans? If you get right down to it what have they ever done for us? Do we really need them? Hum,mmmmmnnn really makes you wonder if deep down under all this BS does this all boil down to your basic race issue???? hummmmnnn thats food for thought

[Mark75H]

Ho was an ally during WWII, but I do not think he had a US education

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh

Then we can close the bases in Europe and bring hundreds of thousands of troops home. Cheaper to have them on unemployment at home than in Germany

[aleconthelake]

I forget what I read it in now, I have Viet namese history book at the house, It might have been that. but I read it somewhere that he was harvard educated. have never really researched it. Still it basically boils down to the fact we backed France's little puppet government.We might have ended up with a very valuable ally if we backed Ho or just kept our noses out of it.Then again spending time in Romania under Cueacescu and visiting a couple other communist countries and knowing what I saw first hand. If he really was a true hard line commie....

[aleconthelake]

Thanks for the link! very informative and I stand corrected. Still makes you wonder, What if Truman had acknowledged his requests and we had done things correctly.

[aleconthelake]

you might be right about bringing the troops home but as far as I'm concerned this country should do what Isreal does, turn 18 you go to the military for 2 years boy girl whatever, sweat a little for your country. Learn a little discipline and respect, get a little bit of a work ethic. Then go to college or go back to the farm be a grease monkey or what ever it is you choose to do.At least learn who you really are Might go a long way to reducing welfare rolls and alot of other worthless govermment programs designed to keep people on the govermment nipple and under the goverments thumb

[aleconthelake]

Why do we usually support those governments?

Do we need 11 aircraft carriers to do this? (Russia, China, England, France, Thailand, Brazil and India have one each, Spain and Italy sort of have 2 each). We have as many as all the rest of the world combined. This is the current US military style ... to be as armed as the entire rest of the world combined and that is still not enough.

As Eisenhower warned this is very expensive ... is Eisenhower's advice bad?

You know thinking about it, After the Japanese surrender a Japanese general was asked "why didnt you invade the west coast of America when you had us on our back?" His reply was the cost of invading a country where every home had guns would have been too high,. That is not an exact quote but you get the gist of what he was saying. the size and technological complexity of our military is definitely .... above and beyond I think especially if you look throughout history, even our own (i.e. the american revolution) a smaller less heavily armed inferior force that is fighting for something it truly believes in may lose the battle but ultimately wins the war. Which brings up another point, Our government has made so many mistakes over the past 50 years and sent our troops to be policeman in a war zone with idiotic rules of engagement and gotten so many killed for no reason,. it gave the liberals of the 60's a reason and did such a good job of demonizing our military, of bluring the lines of what is right and what is wrong , it really makes me wonder,Would this country really have the heart to fight a real knock down drag out war? . Will this country ever stand together again about anything? I mean 9/11, ragheads in this country cheering when the towers came down and there were people in this country saying that that behavior was ok. I got spit ion the first time I came home on leave in uniform. Is that ok? I had a mother have her 10 year old daughter come up to me in union square in NYC and tell me our troops were murdering children in Iraq 25 years later is that OK ? What kind of person uses an innocent child for such a thing? She was part of an anti war rally in the park. I wasnt in uniform and the woman didnt know Im retired military what we she have done then? I'm sorry but until you have done something for our country or served something bigger than yourself shut your mouth and just say thank you to someone who has put it on the line so you can have your freedom to say something stupid and not get in trouble for it. War is horrible, the consequences are horrendous. and that is part of the reason why our military has gotten so big and so expensive. Trying to make war without a human cost. This country and the rest of the really educated world. cant stomach the human cost of war. Well sorry, but until the scourge of people like Ghengis Khan , Kim Il Jung, Adolf hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse tung, POL POT Saddam Hussien, King Edward the 1st, and how many other tin pot dictators is erased from the human gene pool wars will happen and people will die in droves.