We has met the enemy

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Earlier this week I got to talk to a group of 7th graders in a Youth Leadership Class. We ran through the Real Game of Life. Among the topics, we discussed career options.

And you're about to be turned into bass bait.

As this was a severe dose of reality, I told the ladies a career option is stripper. Yes, I did. I also told all of them a career option is dealing drugs.

Simply because YOU object to these things does not mean they do not exist.

I also told these kids the very real drawbacks to those kinds of jobs.

We also discussed the military and how their job is often as simple as killing people.

One of kids raised the point that he has no problem killing the "bad people."

Being me, I immediately asked "Who are the bad people?"

"People who kill children."

Wot Walt said.

"The US military routinely kills women, babies and children with drone strikes and bombs," I said.

One of the students then gave a brief recount of some of her family members who served in 'Nam and who US soldiers there killed women, children and babies.

"Does that make the United States bad?" I asked.

The young student sat back in his chair a bit perplexed. He grudgingly admitted it appears the US is a bad guy.

You can find a lot more of these reports if you bother to look.

So who is the bad guy?

I do not in any way depreciate the people who died in the terrorism attacks and the noble men and women who sacrificed to save others. Billions in damage and thousands dead.

There must be a reckoning.

"The cost of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan are estimated at 225,000 lives and up to $4 trillion in U.S. spending, in a new report by scholars with the Eisenhower Research Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies." http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2011/06/warcosts

When a toddler in Pakistan gets his legs blown off in a bombing attack, have we really served justice or have we turned into the bad guys?

I remind you the current president is the man who specifically orders drone strikes now.

Wonder what he'd think if the Pakistani government came over here with drone and blew the legs off his daughters.