Mary Garvey, I know you have a distinguished military background, but I think you trust the people who make those kinds of decisions a little too much. First of all, how many female generals are there at the top levels of the Pentagon (the levels that advise the president on whether or not to wage war)? How many female generals have there been who were actually in charge of running the war? I don't remember any. How many were there especially back during the time periods when those women were the figureheads for their respective countries? I'm guessing probably none now, and none then.

Most wars are for the purpose of conquest and/or enrichment. That's all. Sometimes people respond to acts of agression by fighting back, but as often as not, these people are called guerrilla fighters and/or terrorists. I'm sure this reality is very difficult for you to face. You don't want to think that the hell you and many other good, brave, and dedicated people went through was for anything other than the highest principles. But the reality is not as you think it is (or was). As hard as it is to admit these things, if you keep rationalizing for these people, you just help to perpetuate the horrors they commit.

This is what Smedley Darlington Butler had to say about it. Butler, "one of the most decorated soldiers in the history of the Marine Corps and recipient of two Medals of Honor and the Distinguished Service Medal, became unspeakably disillusioned with his accomplishments. His service record reads like an itinerary of all the "peacekeeping" and "humanitarian interventions" Wilson's enlightened and honourable foreign policy brought to a benighted world.

After his retirement in 1931, Butler wrote, "I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

"I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

"Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.""

And here's a history of some of those "humanitarian interventions". It doesn't look like the people we were ostensibly there to help were actually helped. In fact, it looks to me like they and their society were raped and pillaged by us, and left out in the sun to rot.

Some prior "humanitarian interventions" in the history of the US