Warning: Political Rant

***Warn Political Rant: Do not read if you don't want to hear this junk ***

My mom posted on her blog that she thinks the troops should come home and help with the rebuilding effort on the gulf coast. Although I respect her opinion and see her motivations, I disagree. I think we have enough resources to handle multiple problems at once.

Also, the majority of our troops are not skilled craftsmen. They could only haul away debris. The corps of engineers is already involved on the gulf coast, as well as reservist and national guard troops.

It's kind of like Empire Strikes Back. When the second Death Star is destroyed midway through completion. Do you think Storm Troopers were building it? No way, it had to be done be skilled contractors and laborers. Most of whom did not really have affiliation with the Empire vs. Rebels conflict. But what happened to them, they got blew up right in the middle of rewiring the tractor beam.

If our troops were to suddenly leave, I admit it would be better for American Citizens in the short term. They would be home and "out of harms way" (if such a place still exists in the age of terrorism). But the region would likely fall into chaos and come out the other side controlled by some new Terrorist or Dictator. Then the long term problems would be greatly increased. I want Iraq to be self-sufficient and controlled by the people (even if they choose a Muslim theocracy, which theoretically should have the needs of its citizens in mind).

If we remove a powerful dictator like Saddam and leave we have only created a Power-vacuum that will soon be filled by someone worse. But during the struggle to take that spot thousands of human-beings will die in Iraq. But I guess that doesn't matter because they aren't American or Christian?

America can tackle both problems and thousands of others simultaneously. But if we our traditional American knee-jerk reaction and face inwards bad things can happen. The Holocaust was allowed to continue because it didn't affect Americans (until Pearl Harbor). We put blinders on the Muslim world... Russians invade Afghanistan... we give Afgan's guns and look the other way... Osama uses them to consolidate power... 9/11 happens. I think America's biggest historical failings have come from looking only inward.

As a Christian I think we should look outside of ourselves. But yes, let's remove the speck from our eye before we remove the log from someone else's.

***Political rant over, I try to keep meaty stuff like this out of my blog because this isn't why you read a person's blog. And I'm just one more idiotic opinion. ***