The United States officially sends soldiers into situations only when they are needed and remain in the country for as long as their help is needed and no more. However there have been times when there are not enough soldiers or too many or they are in countries where they are not wanted. That is how the role of the soldiers operate in reality. The question is why? Are we trying to compensate for a past wrong we help (unknowingly) commit?
During World War II the greatest atrocity against human kind was committed. Millions of people were senselessly murdered because Hitler rose to power virtually uncontested. The United States, during the 1940s, was trying to remain isolationist in their practice of world powers. Therefore when a war ensued against this cruel leader the United States did not want to assist the Allies in the actual fighting of the war. Though we eventually did enter in the war and helped win it, there was still a situation we did not foresee or stop, the Holocaust. The ramifications of the neglect (not only of the U.S. but also other countries) are evident in Alfred Hitchcock’s documentary on concentration camp liberation. The mountains of bodies and nameless faces will haunt the soldiers, world leaders and civilians for the rest of time because it was our worlds biggest mistake.
The United States neglected to enter and fight for those who needed their help once, they did not want to do that again. The persistent appearance of our soldiers over in countries such as Afghanistan is unwelcome though our leaders do not want to leave until they know the people are safe. It appears to be an overcompensation. However some civilians involved are feeling they are no longer needed and take a stand.
“Matthew Hoh…after seeing how the war has played out, he turned in a letter of resignation from his position…what really caused him to resign is “why and to what end” the U.S. continues its war effort in Afghanistan.
Since the new administration has taken over the White House, the number of troops in Afghanistan has increased. Hoh observes that many of the insurgents are fighting against U.S. presence in Afghanistan, and the continued troop presence only furthers this problem. He calls the problem in Afghanistan essentially a distant civil war that the U.S. needs not interfere with….He went on to say that from the point of view of local peoples, insurgency against the occupying NATO and U.S. forces is justified. Afghanistan should be left to figure out its own future.”
This one time Captain with involvement in the Pentagon and State Department knows the U.S. once had a purpose to be in Afghanistan but are no longer needed. They are only irritating the people and causing more problems then solving.
The United State appears to be overcompensating for past failures, but what our leaders need to realize is they cannot right past wrongs but learn from them and ensure nothing of that nature occurs again.
U.S. Official Turns in Resignation Over War in Afghanistan
October 27th, Utah County Libertarian Examiner, Devin Rees.
Alfred Hitchcock Holocaust Documentary
I think your post is very interesting, I would have never thought of it that way. It does seem natural for people, when they make a mistake, to overcompensate just to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’m sure at one point in time we’ve all wished we could turn back the clock and do things a little differently. I think what you are saying makes a lot of sense. I agree that we can’t go back in time, so we should just learn from our mistakes instead of trying to overcompensate then next time around. In regards to current events, there is no need to go overboard and bring in an unnesessary amount of force when we are not needed or even wanted. Espcially when we are talking about the lives of our soliders.
At the beginning of this post it is stated that a possible reason the U.S. is so involved in world conflicts today is because of our guilt for the atrocities of the Holocaust. However, I don’t think our isolationist stance on World War II was due to incompassion towards the cause. The United States was still emerging from the great depression in the time that the war broke out. It was decided that our nation should come first and our distance from the conflict allowed us this luxury. However, while the United States’ official stance on the war was isolationism, we were far from it. We supplied munitions and finances to the side that we wanted to win trying to affect the outcome. Also, the extent of the Holocaust was not known until after the war was over. There had always been rumors, but no one could know for certain whether they were just horror stories or truth. Prior to the Holocaust no one would have dreamed that in their worst nightmares something like this could happen, therefore stories that arose, I would imagine, were practically unbelievable. Even today it is hard to believe and make sense of this incident.
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