Quite often I am inspired beyond a comment by other’s blogs.  This post is one of those times.  I visited http://bubbanear.blogspot.com/ Noteworthy better known as Bubba’s blog and the following is what I came away with.
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Patriotism is simply not part of our lives anymore. First we did away with the draft which was a huge mistake.  Eight weeks of boot camp made men out of boys.  It also instilled a love of and appreciation of country.  The draft  united the population  with an identity as Americans, as veterans, as Airmen, Soldiers or Marines.  And so much more that is intangible and unexplainable but talk to any veteran and he/she will tell you there is indeed "something".

After removing the requirement for national service for young people we then took the flag, the national anthem and God from our schools.  What we have today is  a people divided and viciously attacking each other over every little social issue that comes up.  This is the result of the disconnection from the bond of being Americans.

We do as a nation look for it; we want as individuals to belong to this group called Americans who can  think and feel and believe  with the good of all as its unique characteristic, but it eludes us.  Go back and read your history books or just talk to older Americans and you will learn that the people had this “something”  during two world wars and a terrible depression.    So what happened?  Some would say Viet Nam happened.  But People 58,000 dead is a relatively small number in our history of wars.  (see: http://members.aol.com/usregistry/allwars.htm )  This was ostensibly the reason for making ours an all volunteer army and doing away with the draft.  By Dear Lord  was the price we have  paid of disconnection from our unity as Americans worth  the turmoil  and strife and discord we live with daily as a nation today.  Was it worth disbanding the one common denominator the men in our nation had one with the other?  Was it worth discontinuing the one common song and pray our children and our citizens had in our public gatherings.  I think not.

I wonder will we ever again be a "One nation under God"?

Debtor Nation
The rising risks of the American Dream, on a borrowed dime

Here is what some of them are saying according to the unabashedly liberal New York Times is saying about the candidates positions: “John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, would keep troops in the region to intervene in an Iraqi genocide and be prepared for military action if violence spills into other countries. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York would leave residual forces to fight terrorism and to stabilize the Kurdish region in the north. And Senator Barack Obama of Illinois would leave a military presence of as-yet unspecified size in Iraq to provide security for American personnel, fight terrorism and train Iraqis.”

“Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, who has proposed setting up separate regions for the three major ethnic and religious groups in Iraq until a stable central government is established before removing most American troops.”, and finally the only one holding the line is Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico who has said he would even leave some military equipment behind to expedite the troop withdrawal. At the YearlyKops convention last week he said, “I have a one-point plan to get out of Iraq: Get out! Get out!”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/us/politics/12dems.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Headlines: “Bipartisanship is good for both sides”

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-slaughter9aug09,0,2060608.story?coll=la-opinion-center

One paragraph summarizes the article, “The ferocious anger felt and expressed by Yglesias and others about the stupidity, waste and danger of this war is palpable and justifiable. But the country as a whole does not have the luxury of giving in to the temporary catharsis of anger and blame-mongering. A bipartisan solution is politically risky and emotionally unsatisfactory. But it is the only way.”

  Headlines:  Jordan Yields Poverty and Pain for the Well-Off Fleeing Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/world/middleeast/10refugees.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&th&emc=th 

I found this article interesting because this is exactly the group that fled the newly formed state of Israel  in 1948.  They ran from the Jews whom they felt would brutalize them as they had brutalized the Jews,   only to find their fellow Arabs and Muslims would imprison them in concentration camps  and demand exorbitant prices for any basics going into those camps until the people were totally impoverished.   Those who could not leave due to poverty have fared well in Israel.  True, they are second class citizens without the full rights of Jewish Israelis, but they are much better off economically than they were before the mandated Jewish State of Israel was formed,  and far, far better off than those who due to their affluence were able to flee.

Israel had no need for the educated and affluent Arab/Muslims who fled their country because Jews from around the world who could afford to (educated and affluent) left the countries where they were merely tolerated and  joined in making a homeland for themselves and their children.

Iraq on the other hand very much needed the middle class to stabilize and govern their country after the ouster of Saddam.  They and their businesses  were the backbone of the Iraqi economy by offering jobs to workers,  and staffing the various institutions neccessary to a functioning society.  A stable economy and people with jobs  are far less likely to surcome to civil disorder.  These   affluent middle class people however fled their country leaving a vacuum that was quickly filled by those hungry for power and who in this effort to obtain  power are now fighting each other for supremacy making Iraq the unstable battleground that it is now instead of the secure democratized land that it could have been. 

There is a lesson to be learned here but I suspect it will never be learned man being the perverse animal he is. These affluent Arab/Muslim Iraqis fled their country just as their fellow Arab/Muslims fled  the newly created state of Israel, and for much the same reason I suspect.  The Muslims of Palestine expected poor treatment from the Israelis; the Muslim Iraqis expected poor treatment from the Americans.  Neither outcome was true of course.  However the actions of these people illustrates one basic truth of human nature:  people tend to judge others actions by those  they themselves would take if the positions were reversed.  BB