Military Entanglements and Bankruptcy

YOU MIGHT REMEMBER the "patriot missile" which suddenly hit the public spotlight about twenty years ago during the first (of many) american wars in iraq, the one to liberate kuwait from saddam. Saddam cleverly started lobbing missiles into israel, hoping to provoke war with israel, knowing that so doing would inspire all other arab countries to get involved, and perhaps even turn bush's war into world war.

Thankfully the strategy didn't work, partly because the united states told israel not to lift a finger, we'll take care of it, if you lift a finger, we're gonna be very very, angry. easy to say when the missiles aren't killing your children in their backyards.

the patriot missile looks like a big box pointing at the sky, with dozens of little missiles inside the box, ready to go. it shined during the gulf war, shooting down enough  iraqi missiles, (and failing to shoot down many others) to earn the praise of general schwarzkopf.

since then the patriot has been quietly in the background; until now. the united states is sending several to turkey, to defend against syrian missiles. turky requested them, and germany and the netherlands are chipping in with a patriot or two of their own.

i really never knew that america's NATO allies also have patriots, but it isn't surprising, you never know when missiles from russia or elsewhere might need to be shot down over europe. all i know is, the united states, my beloeved america, had damned well be very very careful about inventing, developing, deploying, and selling sophisticated high tech weapons all over the world.

It doesn't always work out well. Are we americans ready to face the fact that the two atomic bombs dropped on japan at the end of warld war two served no military purpose, other than revenge, and scaring the soviet union? Maybe not.  Big fancy american weapons are all well and good, and the united states is a virtuous nation, dedicated to peace and justice throughout the world, granted, but...

sometimes it does not work out the way we intended, and, our intentions may not always be the best..bankrupt third world nation better be careful what it does with weapons, confucius say...