Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
When I was a 19-year-old lance corporal, it was common to have open debates in the squad bay about the various wars or insurgencies that were going on, or had gone on in the past and what would be the best way to solve these conflicts.
Inevitably the outcome of these debates was, “Kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out.”
While this made perfect sense to young enlisted men, I never thought I’d hear it espoused from supposed mature, elected senators who like to consider themselves members of the “the greatest deliberative body on earth.”
Not only members of the U.S. Senate, but elected officials at all levels, as well as presidential candidates, newspaper editors, pundits and other ne’er-do-wells are all waving the bloody shirt and urging war -- not only on Hamas for their inexcusable slaughtering of women and children, but also on Iran and Russia for allegedly being complicit in the Hamas attacks.
With no hard evidence to bolster their claims, these saber-rattling jingoists accuse Iran and Russia with aiding and abetting Hamas through assistance with arms as well as planning and strategy problems.
Bear in mind that what they are accusing Russia and Iran of doing with Hamas is exactly what our own government is doing on the side of Ukraine in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Vladimir Putin, by the way, is facing his own war mongers who believe Russia should make war on the U.S. for our assistance in arming Ukraine.
The Gerald Ford carrier group is being joined by the Dwight Eisenhower carrier strike group and the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit in the Mid-East. The stated purpose of these maneuvers declaims, “The increases to U.S. force posture signal the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s security and our resolve to deter any state or non-state actor seeking to escalate this war.”
In truth, the clause, “except for us,” should be added to that stated purpose.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I recall that in 1983 there was a Marine Battalion Landing Team from 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division in the Middle East, specifically in Beirut, Lebanon.
On Sunday morning, Oct. 23, 1983, their barracks was blown up by suicide bombers, killing 241 marines and sailors.
Surely nothing like this could ever happen again.
Really? How soon they forget.
Rube Render is a former Clovis city commissioner and former chair of the Curry County Republican Party. Contact him:
