OPINION
“If I wuz you” is a punchline to a great joke. Your uncle comes out of the bathroom on Thanksgiving afternoon and says I wouldn’t go in there if I wuz you.
The United States under Joe Biden, here we go again.
One of my many idols in history has been the great George Orwell. Orwell said, “All the war propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred comes inevitably from people who are not fighting.”
Let’s begin.
Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon told so many lies about southeast Asia. The almost agreed upon figure now is our country spent 141 billion dollars in Vietnam in 14 years. 58,220 American soldiers lost; no one will ever know how many southeast Asians; and North Vietnam is 1.1 million soldiers killed, and to what end?
Next, of course, comes George Bush and Dick Cheney. The Iraq war has cost the U.S. nearly two trillion dollars. When the United States decided to leave, or some people say was evicted from Iraq, the bill of the war was an estimated 1.922 trillion dollars. And as you know, much like southeast Asia, totally based on lies.
There are so many young men and women out there, the veteran suicide rate has skyrocketed, and once again to what end? The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and August of 2021, the United States left. I ask you, what have you now learned?
These beginnings often become trip wire wars. One of my favorite historians, Barbara Tuchman, says the first World War was a series of people stepping on the tripwire. A tripwire war. A lie or an actual event can lead to the insanity that World War One was or the insanity that you and I are watching now. The Iranians seem to be just waiting in the wings. The Biden Administration sends carrier fleets, and Biden bypasses Congress on aid to Ukraine and Israel. We have given so many billions of dollars of weapons and what is the end use? And how will this end?
I fear the United States is going back to the craziness of Nixon-Johnson, or Bush-Cheney times, and it really is up to voters to try and stop this.
The Houthi rebels are vowing retaliation after the U.S. hit them with airstrikes in Yemen. U.S. Navy warships and fighter jets on the Dwight Eisenhower took part in the operation against them. The U.S. Air Force Mideast Command says it struck over 60 targets in 16 sites in Yemen. The trip wire is there.
So, much like your uncle coming out of the bathroom on Thanksgiving, I wouldn’t go in there “if I wuz you.”
— Peter Boyles