The point is this. The facts before us lead to the conclusion
that the former Presidential Candidate and Congressman from Ohio , Dennis Kucinich may have been correct
when he proposed a Ministry of Peace. Because as a whole, America is a
war-weary nation.
One writer recently admonished us as a people for even using
this term. After all, he argued, in World War II we sacrificed much to win a
war. And in Vietnam ,
the draft polarized a nation. In this case, we have a volunteer army and most
have not felt the pain and sacrifice of past war years.
So, the idea that we are not war-weary is not justified. If
we had not invested blood and treasure in these two wars, we may have used that
investment to build super-highways and schools, roads or bridges that would
sustain us in competition with our global trading partners. As it stands, we
are in debt and woefully behind the times in all measures of social progress.
So let us not quibble about how we got to this point. We all
know that this is a war-weary nation. And we elected a President to preside
over a “sadder but wiser” mentality concerning future engagements. This brings
us to the present. The Syrian conflict is not one that Obama has rushed to
embrace.
Admittedly, there have been half-hearted measures of support
from the administration for a floundering resistance movement in Syria . But on
the whole, we have managed to stay out of this conflict. If the President does
manage to pull off the “coup” of having negotiated a peaceful withdrawal of the
alleged chemical weapons stockpile from Syria , then we should all breathe a
collective sigh of relief.
Most probably, the far right will find fault with all
manners of this sausage-making enterprise. However, we are a war-weary people
and we have elected a war-wary President. Let us rejoice and be glad of that
fact.
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