The reason why I told that story is because he (as an American) is not the only one(s) that suffered in combat or feel betrayed by their government or, as in the case I mentionend, an international organization.
Show me where I disrespect the American soldier. War is hell, we all know that but the ones who fought it know it better. Losing your friend in combat is terrible.
What we are talking about happens in almost every war. Some will feel betrayed others not. Soldiers from various nations fought in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afganistan, Bosnia. All of them could have said : what am I fighting for in a country that's not mine. Every soldier has his personal story but it is not they who make the decisions to go to war, it is not they who decide where battles are fought. When you enlist you know **** can happen. Unfortunately it happend to him (and many others).
But I stick to my opinion that the Coaltion forces did a great job in Iraq. Whether you find the war justified or not.
That's the exact point I was trying to make. I know I'm not the only who feels this way. You don't have to point this out to me. It seems to be a trend...Soldiers don't have the luxury of picking where and who they fight. Noone understands this truth more than I. It certainly doesn't mean that I'm to be a robot and ignore the moral issues that come with the decisions that our policy makers decide. Lions led by lambs. When I joined the military I naively assumed that my country would not send Americans to die in an effort where we can't win. Again. I thought that the best and the brightest of our decision makers could never lead to us through another Vietnam.
What I have seen is that the lessons of history are hardest learned by the men and women in the breech while those monitoring the progress with their charts and diagrams and power point presentations are so far removed from the reality on the ground that it creates the quagmires that make it almost impossible to get ourselves out of. We are sent off to war with almost impossible expectations and rules that restrict us to the point where we can hardly defend ourselves. Soldiers on the ground have tried and tried and tried to voice their ideas on what's effective and again and again it is largely ignored. I suppose all we're good for is dieing and killing.
You may certainly have your opinion on the subject. Much the same way a virgin will have an opinion on sex. You can read, talk, and research it all you want...until you've done it, your input is not going to be taken very seriously.
I would say the coalition forces did the best with what they had. There is certainly areas where we could have done a lot better. There are certainly decisions that could have been made that would have made the persecution in dealing with the insurgency much easier. Paul Bremer and his entourage come to mind when it comes to inept leadership that made the duration of the war at least 5 years longer than it should have.
The fact of the matter is that we should not have been there in the first place. Not under the circumstances we went over there for. The way we went in there was all wrong too. There was absolutely no plan for what to do after Baghdad fell, and the actions taken by the Bush administration and his right hand men in Iraq showed that clearly in the summer of 2003. We went in there with conservatively about 1/3 and more realistically about 1/5 the number of troops we should have. Numerous US generals stated that we needed at a minimum half a million troops. Those same generals found themselves on the chopping block as soon as they stated their protest. Rumsfeld was all about "smaller more agile". That's fine if we're going to go in and go out. The fact is we didn't know what we were going to do.
I also take offense to companies like KBR and Haliburton running amock throughout the country. Why am I providing security to their convoys when they are transporting nothing worth protecting? They were given a blank check by the US government and I personally witnessed drivers that were told to " leave ANY damaged vehicle outside the wire, we'll just write it off". Damaged could be anything from one destroyed by an IED, to one getting a flat tire that could be fixed in about 15 minutes. Why also were they renting Chevy Tahoes and Cadillac Escalades for driving around our FOBs? I'll tell you why, because they're the most expensive vehicle they could get and they get to charge the uncle sam with interest. These contractors made billions and there was absolutely no oversight. Even worse, I was expected to risk my life so that these guys could make 5-10 times what I make and so the heads of the company can make billions.
We weren't there for freedom or democracy. We were there for the contracts to rebuild. What do we have to show for it? An extremely weak government that is largely influenced by Iran with a flourishing insurgency and a breeding ground for new terrorists.
I'm not doubting that the soldiers on the ground did a helluva job given the circumstances. But their sacrifice had nothing to do with protecting anything other than the interests of a few that had billions to make off it with a price tag of 4000 US soldier lives , 40,000 wounded and conservatively 2 trillion dollars in cost.
