Let There Be Peace by bobby jennings As a former US serviceman serving in NATO forces in 1968-1969 and a concerned citizen of the US and the World, I consider a call for NATO ground troops as socially irresponsible. I call your attention to "Time Magazine" page 62 of the May 3rd, 1999 edition and the editorial by Charles Krauthammer where he labels the Clinton Administration incompetent to wage a ground war. This is a most compelling argument against ground troops in which I share. I feel very strongly in favor of World intervention to combat genocide and might have been convinced for the US or NATO to step in to stop the genocide in Yugoslavia even though this action is in clear violation of both the spirit of the UN and it's charter. InnerSelf Magazine Thousands of articles on health, lifestyle changes, behavior, parenting astrology, and much more. Holistic Politics Social and political commentary, discussion forums, and thousands of news feeds. Natural Yellow Pages Listings of natural products and services worldwide. List your natural product or service. Article Index - Back Online Soon Links to related articles around the web. Share a link to your articles online here. InnerSelf Market Natural products sold and shipped by Innerself However, the incompetence (Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq follow-through) of primary US military intervention due to political waffling, except when our forces a far superior (Panama, Grenada, Spanish American War, etc) argues against intervention with ground forces. The Clinton Administration is the incompetent of the incompetent both morally and militarily. I voted for Clinton twice and feel betrayed as do the majority of Americans who voted for the democratic principles to which they gave political lip service. Already The Clinton Administration has joined The Harding Administration as the very worst in US history, but if the Balkans spin completely out of control, t hey will join Hitler and Stalin as supreme humanitarian villains. Could it spin out of control? Consider. Serbia or Albania attacks each other. There are skirmishes on the border. This could spark a pure Christendom-Islamic conflict catching NATO and US forces in the middle. We have virtually made fun of Russia's economic plight and weakness. They surely would intervene in Serbia's defense in a-? religious "them vs. us" conflict. Had we properly planned for military intervention as Colin Powell and others did in Iraq, then I would have favored intervention. But it is now apparent that was not the case. As for the US intervening on humanitarian concerns, that is the biggest lie since Nixon denied bombing Cambodia or Johnson prefabricated the Tonkin Gulf incident. Clearly if we had intervened in Yugoslavia for humanitarian reasons, things would certainly be different. Disregard the argument of whether we are causing human suffering and just consider the minor incident of The Clinton Administration sending up a "political trial balloon" to bring refugees to the Cuban Naval Base. Have you ever heard anything so inhuman? And it doesn't start and end with the Clinton Administration. The political incompetence runs deep to the local roots in this country and our governments and courts have turned away from the principles on which our country was founded. Presently we ask ourselves, why Littleton? And the only answer is, what do you expect with the way things have been going in this century and escalating in the last sixty years. Escalating with Roosevelt's blocking aid to the Jews during WWII and culminating to the situation in this country where a lie is no longer a lie but "spin", where legislative systems are controlled by special interest and are full of self-serving patrician members, where a political court system exists instead of one that was designed to protect the citizens, where government goes to highest bidder, where law enforcement officials routinely lie and cheat for convictions, and finally where the "Fourth Estate" is more concerned with profits and ratings than being socially responsible or calling a spade a spade. Journalism was once the epitome of integrity and social responsiveness but has now relegated it's social responsiveness to being a poorly researched and produced carbon copy of Sixty Minutes causing more harm than good. What happened in Littleton? It's not complicated. Children are not being supervised by their parents. Why? Parents are too busy trying to make a living and because a morally bankrupt government serves as an example to both adult and children alike. And all the while a journalistic community fiddles while all but the socially elite burn. Are you aware that the gap between the rich and the poor in this country is growing rapidly and the lower middle class has almost disappeared and the majority of the poor are in jail or under court supervision? Do you understand that we are so bombarded to consume excessively that many parents feel they both need or have to work. So who do you think is watching the children? Don't think it's getting worse? Let me refer you to Time again, same edition, page 38. Children spend on the average of 3.5 hours alone. Parents spend 11 fewer hours per week with their children than they did in the 60's. Children have seen 8,000 murders in one media or another by the time they graduate from grammar school. There has been a 1000 % increase in depression in children since the 60's. And finally, suicide is up 300% among children. Not only has our society slowly degraded but now we are really in a fix and caught between that proverbial "rock and a hard place" and I shudder to think that if this War In The Balkans spins of control, that the only answer would be a military takeover to prevent the World at war again. Call me an extremist nut, which I am not. But perhaps, if you are prone to nationalistic or ethnic superiority tendencies, you might just look around and know you might be at least be glimpsing the future. I urge you to "belly up" to the Socially Responsible Bar and drink of life's true nectar. Do your little part to return Amer-i-ca to the special principles on which you thought it was founded and then maybe America can for once stand as a shinning example of freedom of spirit to others and the World can finally live in peace. About The Author bobby jennings is co-publisher of InnerSelf Publications and webmaster of InnerSelf.com/InnerSelf.ca. Originally a Democrat for many years, he moved to the Republican party in the mid 1980's and the Green Party in 2000. He returned to the Republican party after the 2006 election. He now supports common sense initiatives from all parties and votes independently in the general elections. He supports small efficient honest government, government managed capitalism, an independent judiciary, religious tolerance, and social justice. He is an ex-Army officer and retired small business owner. He was born, raised, and educated in the "Old South" in Northern Florida.      Comments (0) >> Write comment Name Website Title Comment Write the displayed characters Add Comment

 

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