Tuesday, May 29, 2007

America: Living to fight as it appears or Fighting to Live as we are told?

Yesterday I was consumed with the crazy thought that my son who is an EOD(explosive ordinance Disposal) Team Leader just got home from Afghanistan now wants to volunteer for Iraq. I am very concerned as you are with what Iraq is going to look like in a year, how long we will be there, and how many Americans will lose their lives in Bush's lost cause. with 114 americans killed so far in May I see this getting a lot worse and lasting a lot longer than any of us want.

This morning I was listening again to the number of Americans killed in past wars including the civil war where some 562 thousand lost their lives as you know, fighting amongst ourselves. At first I was focused on the wasted lives in Iraq and was wondering how many there would be when all is said and done as well as feeling there is no foresable end. then I went to this list and I wanted to compare how many lives were lost in wars in contrast to how many we lost fighting amongst ourselves.

The numbers were getting too convoluted for me to come up with anything tangable I thought. I then was looking at the immense numbers of conflicts and wars we were in and I decided a comparison of war years to peaceful years would be best to tell our story. I couldn't figure it out. I was floored by the number of conflicts and wars America has been in since our founding and thought I would say we have only had approximately 50 years of peace and supply this link on our war and peace History. List of America's wars

Then I went back to google and I found this compelling story by Jon Stanton showing that America has been at war openly or clandestinely essentially since we were founded. I merely want you to see what is out there and think about the whole story. Having read what he wrote I thought there was something at least worth reading, thinking about, and putting in perspective.

I never read him so I researched him and found him to be a Virginia based writer that writes from a left wing perspective and I am afraid I agree with much of what he says. In fact I have written much of it myself in the past. I am not a warmonger I am a peace lover so I thought I would give you the link to Jon Stanton's book 227 years of warfare written in 2003 and you could tell me what you think. 227 years of warfare

It did make me remember that I did a diary a while back in which I said the U.S. has a war economy and some took exception to that but looking at our History of wars our fault or not I really have to wonder, what are we? I am a peace lover willing to fight for my country as are my sons as you know but are the leaders of America particularly Bush fighting to live or living to fight? what is happening to us? How are we supposed to feel?

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com

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