Since Bush stated that the major combat operations in Iraq have ended, we have been continually hearing how we are losing the peace, he has no exit strategy and basically, what despots we Americans are for even being there. Here are some interesting quotes;
| QUOTE |
| ...seven months after the end of hostilities, things are a complete and deteriorating mess. Here are some of the more depressing details. A soldier says, "We've lost the peace. We can't make it stick." |
| QUOTE |
| "Never has American prestige in Europe been lower. People never tire of telling you of the ignorance and rowdy-ism of American troops." The French warn that, "our policy is producing results opposite too those we planned." Meanwhile, some troops are tired of talk about grants to the war-torn nation. Says one, "Let them pay for it. It's their fault." |
| QUOTE |
| "A great many Europeans feel that the cure has been worse than the disease... The time has come for our own future security, to give the best we have to the world instead of the worst." |
| QUOTE |
| Europeans. Friend and foe alike, look you accusingly in the face and tell you how bitterly they are disappointed in you as an American. They cite the evolution of the word ?liberation.? |
| QUOTE |
| The taste of victory had gone sour in the mouth of every thoughtful American I met. Thoughtful men can?t help remembering that this is a period in history when every political crime and every frivolous mistake in statesmanship has been paid for by the death of innocent people. |
Does any of this sound familiar? Isn't it a lot like the doom and gloom articles so prevelant in mainstream media?
It wasn't taken from today's pages of the LA Times, the New York Times, the Guardian, BBC, or even from any of the myriad of websites set up to denigrate the war on Terror or the current government. No, it is quotes from an article written for Life magazine by John Dos Passos, January 7, 1946.
I would have to say that even with all the doom and gloom of the outcome of that war, Europe has faired pretty well and even kept the tyrants that brought them into that great war from regaining power. I hope and pray that the people of Iraq and Afghanistan have the same good fortune Europe has had.