America = Superman?!

So much about the war has been circulating for such a long time. All the issues have been raised, many more than once. Numerous news videos and stories have been played on television and the Internet. With all of this going on since 2001, it is easy to forget that there even is a war—technically just an extremely large military operation—still happening.

At least it has been for me. I was fairly young when the terrorist attacks happened. I was only slightly older, and not really involved in anything but my own little teenage world, when there was talk of sending troops to Iraq. And even now, when the news stories about the goings-on in the Middle East have dwindled to the most recent terrorist bombings (but what else is new?!), the topic of the war is easily avoidable if one is not searching for it.

Along with my limited knowledge of the war, I developed a limitedly scant opinion of it a little while after the hubbub started: war is bad. Along the way I have developed my view slightly: we, as the most powerful nation in the world, do not have an obligation to all of the other countries to “save” them if they do not ask. We help, but we do not thrust our ideals upon them, and that is what I feel like we are doing—maybe we weren’t in the first few years, but we definitely are after 6+ years have passed.

The milblog fortified my thoughts of this. I do believe that there is a need for military, and I most certainly appreciate all of the people that choose to serve our country in that way. But my opinion is reinforced when I read that many of the people in the military do not think we should be involved in this war either. I was encouraged that, as I said in one of my responding posts to the milblog, all the people in the Middle East are not haunted by lives of “doom and gloom” constantly. However, having all those stations of troops is wasteful, when we could use our troops in other parts of the world.

America doesn’t always have to be the hero. We are powerful, and I believe we should be philanthropic enough to be helpful. But being helpful only goes so far.