The "packer peoples" thread came, went, and got locked during my short mini-sabbatical. But there is one thing I want to point out on our resident Marine's behalf.
Criticize some members of the armed services for atrocities they committed (My Lai comes to mind; I'm sure Foster knows others). That's the lesson Nuremberg made clear. Atrocities happen, and they aren't legitimated by claiming "orders" or pointing out the evils of the other side.
But to criticize them because of "50 years of adventurism" or whatever the phrase of the day you might prefer? That simply demonstrates a lack of awareness of the place of the military in the American system.
You're forgetting the same thing that all the overeducated anti-war people forgot when they were spitting on soldiers who were coming back from Vietnam.
The same thing that even the usually to-be-admired MacArthur forgot before Harry Truman reminded him.
In this country it is the civilians that make the decisions where and when soldiers go with their duffles and their weapons. Foreign policy is not a decision of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and it sure as hell isn't any of the people without stars on their collars.
And it is with the civilians that the responsibility for such "adventurism" lies. Hate what America has done for the last fifty years. Fine. Go ahead. I'll probably agree with you on an awful lot of it.
But don't put the hate on the rifle-bearers. Put it on the Macnamaras and the Pentagon star-wearing-bureaucrats and the people on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue and on both sides of the political aisle.
Soldiers don't get to pick and choose. They take an oath that says they are going to do the best they can to implement the directions of those people in the Capitol, White House, and Pentagon, regardless of whether they think those people are fucked in their ideas or not.
And being really good at what they are doing, they tend to do things that work toward the objectives of those policies, no matter how wrongheaded said policies and objectives might be.
If the knuckleheads inside the Beltway had half the abilities at what they do that the Marines have at what they do, or a tenth of the honor to their oaths that the Marines have, 99.99% of the useless/evil/disreputable "adventurism" that Dakota and others complain about wouldn't have occurred.
Okay, I've had my say.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)