Perspective by Charley Reese

Charlie Reese writes:

"I enraged one of the Fox News chatterers while a guest on his show by accusing him of being a fearmonger on the subject of terrorism. I pointed out that the same year terrorists killed 3,000 Americans, ordinary criminals murdered 12,000, and the usual 90,000 or so died in accidents. For some reason, he thought that was an outrageous statement...

"As for the war in Iraq, that, too, should be viewed in perspective. We've been there since March 2003, and we've lost about 1,300 soldiers. To be brutally realistic, that is not a particularly high toll for a guerrilla war... What we have to realize is that a certain number of Americans are going to die as long as we stay in Iraq. That is the price of an imperialistic foreign policy. The insurgents cannot drive us out in open battle, but they can nibble away at us indefinitely.

"What ought to enrage Americans is that all this blood and treasure is being spent at best as a favor for the Iraqi people... I'd have been damned if I would have spent 1,300 American lives and $200 billion just to relieve the Iraqi people of their homegrown dictator. Iraq was never a threat to America, and never would have been a threat.

"However, if the American people wish to lavish lives and treasure on a crusade to relieve other people of their own evil governments, then rejoice, for there are plenty of hellholes in which we can bleed out...

"But if you apply the perspective of history to our present situation, you will clearly see that empires don't last. They exhaust themselves fiscally and morally in their endless wars and occupations. My prayer is that we will eventually come to our senses and spend our lives and treasure trying to make the good old U.S.A. as good as any country can be. The internationalists call it isolationism, but George Washington called it a sensible policy."

Perspective by Charley Reese