Allegiance to America
تفجيرات ارهابية في صنعاء
The other day, a reader wrote about the American pledge of allegiance, questioning its legitimacy, and wondering why people who happen to be born here should be loyal to the country’s government, regardless of its behavior.FWIW, I get it. Even on a good day, the whole idea of allegiance to one’s homeland is capricious.
But today isn’t a particularly good day, and tomorrow won’t be either. The U.S. has bombs built at Lockheed Martin and Ratheon that are sold to Saudi Arabia and dropped on school buses, hospitals, weddings and funerals in Yemen. Now three-quarters of the 22 million people living there are in desperate need of humanitarian aid. Our congress, which can’t agree on anything, has passed multiple bills on a bipartisan basis to put an end to this (all of which have been vetoed by Trump). What sort of morally defective person would pledge allegiance to that?
Craig,
It appears you have learned nothing from your selective study of history.
The War in Yeman, like all wars, especially civil war, is savage and brutal.
It’s not possible to contain war to just the soldiers fighting the war, civilians are involved in the politic’s and policies that created the war.
Wars can only only end when the entire population decides the consequences of war are just to terrible to endure and any peace is preferable to annihilation.
Providing civilian aid just prolongs the war, allowing the population to escape the consequences and encouraging a new generation of rebels etc.
This is the reason why UN ‘Peace Keeping’ forces usually fail. One side or the other must prevail, or their is continual conflict as each generation grows up ‘maintaining the rage’, and seeking revenge.
The US occupation of Afghanistan has proved even the best-intentioned army in the world will become bogged down in local conflicts forever unless ruthless enough to completely destroy all resistance.
Craig, your own father dropped bombs on “school buses, hospitals, weddings, funerals, even fire bombing a completely defenseless city packed with refugees and US prisoners of war”.
That bombing was necessary to convince the German civilian population of the futility of national Socialism.
Sherman’s March to the sea in the US civil war, was brutal and created terrible civilian suffering, but it was effective. By the time Sherman’s army reached Charleston, his scorched earth campaign had completely demoralized the Southern war effort and resistance.
Sherman explained it was his intention to “make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.”
Better a brutal end, and lasting peace than enduring decades of conflict.