Now that all the Veterans Day free meals, discounted oil changes and flag waving have ended, I want to offer my opinion on retired Lt. Col. Richard L. Spencer’s commentary in the Cape Gazette Nov. 5.
On its surface his column is a tribute to veterans’ sacrifices through the years, but important questions about our leaders’ policy failures lurk underneath.
For example, Mr. Spencer says that older veterans through the 20th century were “actively involved with the containment of communism…because it was the great and evil story of the 20th century and at its zenith ruled a third of mankind.”
Arguably true, but ask yourself, why then did our esteemed leaders, Roosevelt and Churchill, after Britain declared war on Germany for invading Poland in 1939, agree to grant Poland and the Baltic countries to Stalin at war’s end, condemning millions to live under the yoke of communism?
Then he talks about how after the collapse of communism, “the 21st century has created a new generation of veterans” who have “entered into a worldwide conflict against Islamic/fascist terrorism” after 9/11.
Also true, but look at the results according to a recent study at Brown University. Since 9/11 the War on Terror has cost 801,000 lives and $6.4 trillion to date with no clear victory.
The lt. colonel then asserts that, “winning the nation’s wars is the military’s functional imperative…the only reason for a liberal society to maintain standing armies.”
But, when was the last time that the U.S. won a major war…75 years ago? Certainly not in Korea or Vietnam, and Iraq/Afghanistan have been failed exercises in nation building, producing only death, destruction and hatred for us.
Speaking of the Mideast, look at our current on-and-off negotiations with the Taliban over Afghanistan which still provides much of the world’s opium (!). They are, in effect, discussing the terms of our exit (read defeat) after 18 years and 17 military commanders’ failures. Never mind though…the generals stamped their tickets for another star.
Lastly, Mr. Spencer bizarrely concludes, “... peace is simply the interlude between wars; and, that peace is merely an invention of the West that is so complex it has been beyond humanity’s reach…War over peace is a sad but true recognition of reality.”
That, of course, is only true when a republic (U.S.) morphs into worldwide empire builder in contradiction to its founding principles.
Our fallen veterans, I submit, have been sacrificial pawns in large part for what Eisenhower warned us about in 1961 ... the military/industrial (and congressional) complex and its lucrative, imperial ambitions.
Geary Foertsch
Rehoboth Beach
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