Burnseyy

I do question, on occasion...but then I see the direct results of our actions.

At my last base, we were in the desert. This was over a year ago. If you don't know, there are three sects of Islam, the Suni, Sufi, and Shiite. The Shiites are the zealots with the suicide bombers, and are causing the problems for the new Iraqi government. The Suni are very much the opposite, and are very peaceful. While we were in the desert, we received intel that the Shiites were going to erradicate a Suni religious festival. Unarmed men, women, and children celebrating their religion and life, against geurilla tactic terroists. We scrambled, and over 3 days dropped 1000 bombs and over 500,000 rounds of ammunition against the Shiite group. If we hadn't, those people at the festival would have been wiped out.

Yes, a part of why we are there is to protect our way of life, to help protect one of our major oil importers. But that's not the only, or even the most major, reason. The Iraqi people suffered heavily before Desert Storm, and due to poor policies at the time, suffered even more when we didn't finish the job by taking out Hussian at the time. The real reason that we are still there, and have moved down to Afghanistan, is to not let the same mistake happen again.

This is not a popular war, I know. To many, it's just another Vietnam or Korea. But, if we had done nothing, or were to pull out completely....we would be to blame in a couple years when the Shiites put someone even worse than Hussian back into power.

Yes, I admit that there may be a great deal more than I know behind the scenes. But, I can't second guess the final authority on what I do, simply because of a "what if". The evidence that I, as a troop, see shows that we are actually doing something good, worthwhile, and needed, more than a selfish bid to make money. I know the media doesn't exactly show that....but the media is driven by ratings more than the pursuit of truth. The skirmish I talked about...had a small blurb in the on-base newspaper. I didn't see anything about it on CNN, MSNBC, or any other news broadcast. Mainly, because we did our job, blew up the bad guys, and that was it.