Clarification

Maybe I misinterpreted but, in your last post, you seemed to imply that all we had to do was reduce the size of the military and we would be involved in fewer wars. While I'll admit that there is a correlation between the size of a nation's army and its amount of military activity, we all know that identifying a correlation does not prove cause and effect. My assertion was that soldiers do not cause wars, politicians cause wars. Of course, if they want to engage in lots of wars, they are going to need a large military establishment, but just having a large military establishment will not cause wars to happen.

Every military outfit has a mission, well, actually two missions. First there is the general mission, like "The mission of the infantry is to take and occupy ground by means of maneuver, fire, and close combat", or words to that effect. (Give me a break, it's been a long time.) Then there is the specific mission, like "Advance to the top of Hill 413, expel the enemy forces there, occupy the hill and defend your position against any counter attacks." Then, each sub unit has its own mission which is part of the whole mission, like "Protect 'A' Company's right flank as they move up the hill." When troops are deployed to a foreign country, it's called a "mission". The troops in Afghanistan and the troops in Iraq each have heir own mission. The civilian version of a mission is called a "job assignment".

I used to blame Nixon for "losing" the Vietnam War, but now I think that congress had more to do with it than he did. They were putting a lot of pressure on him to negotiate some kind of settlement and threatening to cut off his funding if he didn't. Nixon kept saying that North Vietnam refused to negotiate and that he was bombing the shit out of them to force them to the conference table. When they did finally come to the table, he gave away the whole farm, probably because they wouldn't accept anything else and he was tired of bucking the political pressure back at home.

I told you something wrong about Canada yesterday. I noticed today, while watching the Weather Channel, that they do indeed show what's going on in Canada when they are displaying the live radar/satellite loops. It's when they are displaying the daily forecast maps that they chop it off right at the Canadian border. Funny, I've been watching the Weather Channel for years and I never noticed that. I still wonder why we never hear much about Canada in the news. Maybe the Canadians themselves don't want a lot of publicity. "The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but the shortest nail gets hammered least." I still maintain that Canada is not a peaceful country because they have a small army, they have a small army because they are a peaceful country.

Obama Care is nothing like the public health care system that they have in Canada. The Canadians seem to be happy with their system, so why wasn't something like that proposed instead of Obama Care? I remember, when Hillary Clinton was working on her health care proposal back when her husband was president, I thought it was going to be something like what they had in Canada or the U.K. When it came out, though, it was a lot like the Obama Care that we have today. The way I remember it, congress didn't want anything to do with it at the time, but it was different congress by 2008, so they passed it, after much weeping and gnashing of teeth. The Tea Party candidates that were elected in 2010 promised that they were going to repeal it, an they certainly have tried. If the people who voted for them didn't want Obama Care repealed, then they shouldn't have voted for them. Apparently, by 2012, some of the voters had forgotten why they had voted for Tea Party candidates in the first place. They will have another chance next year, let's see what happens then.

PS: I know that it's usually spelled "Obamacare", but the spell check in this program disagrees, and I haven't figured out how to over ride it yet.