This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
TOTAL LICENSING
A column
about
American
Conundrums
There is a lovely high-falutin’ word (that’s an- When I started to make notes for this column, What we decide to be our program is a long
other one!). Webster’s collegiate dictionary Donald Rumsfeld was, and seemed to be forever term question!
definition of conundrum: “an intricate problem Secretary of Defense and the President spoke For better or worse the history of the United
or question having only a conjectural (what’s to us about “staying the course with the present States over the last forty years has an unbro-
that?) answer”. level of 140,000 troops”. What happened since ken sequence of interventions that required an
then we all know. We are scratching the barrel armed force – I have actually selected only a few
Abraham Lincoln said: “You cannot escape the to find troops for “the surge” to jar our memory in this list.
responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today”.
• We must extend tours of duty for the LEBANON 1982 – 84: U.S. Marines expelled
So let’s abandon our favorite habit of thinking “it National Guard who, when they joined, the PLO and backed the Christian Phalangists.
is what it is” and try to think “outside the box”, did not see war on the horizon. The Navy bombed and shelled Muslim and Syr-
and even if we don’t have an answer ready, we • We must speed up rotation of battle ian positions.
can at least discuss and search for it! trained units. HONDURAS 1983 – 89: U.S. Troops were
• We must meet higher recruiting quotas sent to establish bases near borders in order
The big questions of recent years are: and offer more and more goodies to to stop the communist leaders in Nicaragua and
ARMY? WAR ON TERRORISM? IRAQ? be able to fill the quotas. Why is all that? support the counterinsurgency in El Salvador
Right? Can the USA continue this way if we and Guatemala.
cannot abandon our “world leadership BOLIVIA 1986: THE U.S. Army assists raids
WHAT KIND OF U.S MILITARY SHOULD role” or construct a utopian “world peace on the cocaine regions.
AMERICA HAVE? everywhere”? PANAMA 1989 – 90: The U.S. sent 27,000
I apologize to the many generals who have • Or can we be an insular nation behind our troops to invade and overthrow the government
thought and spoken about this. I am a mere ocean barrier which as we have learned of Manual Noriega under the war on drugs.
WWII, five stripe Master Sergeant with, how- does no longer offer safety? GULF WAR 1991: The UN-sanctioned Des-
ever, 22 war-time crossings of the Atlantic and Unlike some of my liberal colleagues I don’t ert Storm operation, which included a naval
Pacific to my credit. But then a famous French believe there is any way to withdraw into a blockade of Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
chef once said: “You don’t have to be a chicken snail-like isolation within our shell. BOSNIA 1993 – 95: No-fly zone patrolled
to invent a great omelette”. So, generals and in the civil/religious war, which erupted as the
Secretary of War, please move over…. So then what? Bosnian Serbs went to war. The U.S./NATO
It is said by some that the quality of a so-called bombed Bosnian-Serb positions, to force Serbs
I THINK WE SHOULD HAVE A CITIZEN “professional volunteer army” can be much into the Dayton peace agreement.
ARMY BASED ON THE DRAFT! Things higher than a “mass of draftees”. But then who AFGHANISTAN 1998: Missile attack on Al
have changed and we must seriously ask who serves in today’s volunteer army? Qaeda training camps.
are our sons and daughters in Iraq or Afghani- We may not think of it this way but the USA has YUGOSLAVIA 1999: The U.S./NATO inter-
stan today? been in military action steadily for many years. vention.
114
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126
Produced with Yudu - www.yudu.com. Publish online for free with YUDU Freedom - www.yudufreedom.com.