Thoughts on war, critics and pundits

Vernos Branco, Las Vegas

Monday, Aug. 18, 2014 | 2 a.m.

The American people are war-weary after 11 years in Iraq and 13 years in Afghanistan, yet we have congressional members and pundits calling for more combat troops to be inserted into Iraq to engage ISIS.

These war hawks are disingenuous to the bone because it won’t be their children sent off to die, it won’t be them donning a uniform and shipped out to a combat zone, and it won’t be friends and distant relatives sent off to fight.

It will be what it always has been: other people’s fathers, sons, daughters and mothers who will die or be maimed in lieu of these lawmakers and their kin.

Sen. John McCain said President Barack Obama wasn’t doing enough by dropping two 500-pound bombs on ISIS. I’m pretty sure McCain wasn’t involved in the conversation Obama had with his Pentagon leaders, and if McCain was under one of those bombs, I’ll bet he’d be singing a different tune.

I heard political commentator Amy Tarkanian admit it was a mistake entering into warfare with Iraq under Bush, but then she said it was Obama’s fault for pulling out.

If Tarkanian’s children were killed or survived the horrors of having body parts blown off, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t be as smug commenting on combat in Iraq.

People like her need to see firsthand the horrors of war, not view them on some television broadcast with the intent of filtering out the horrors of war.

This president will do what he can to contain ISIS, but once again we stand alone as the policeman of the world.

I’m sick of us continuing to play that role.