Ahh! The Odor Of Gunsmoke.

       I've been thinking about how I felt about Bush, the younger, taking us to war against Saddam and Iraq. And I've been thinking about how the same Bush agreed to leave Iraq if Karzai demanded our troops would not be protected from their laws, and what I thought about Obama calling it a dumb war, and how we followed the [agreed upon] departure.
       Now I'm thinking about the outcry from the likes of Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and Dick Cheney, and I have to wonder why I agreed with Obama's decision to extend our involvement in Iraq and include Syria. Now I realize it seems to be fashionable to want war in this case. But then I remember back to my point in the buildup to the first Bush II invasion. Why do we think we can do something in the middle east to bring about lasting peace and democracy? Nobody's been able to do that in at last 5000 years.
       We don't seem able to learn anything from our mistakes. The more we fight there, the more people, there, hate us. Even the Middle Eastern nations won't admit they're going to help us, which tells me they won't. Countries like Saudi Arabia fund ISIL and provide fighters, countries like Iran are interested only in expanding their sphere of influence. None are willing to put aside their grievances with each other and honestly fight this, their enemy. ISIS/ISIL look forward to forcing America into a war we cannot win, and which they will be strengthened, at least that's what they think, and could be right about.
       Whenever we've taken any kind of action in the Middle East, be it buying their oil to destroying their governments to arresting and torturing their terrorists, they hate us all the more. So if the people of all those countries and the governments of those countries aren't all in, why in the world are we in? Don't get me wrong, I know that going to war is thee national pastime for America, but couldn't we, just this once, give up the opportunity to flex our might?