Age and Experience

You know in China and other traditional Asian societies there is a lot of respect for age and experience. At least that is what I learned through my travels and studies. After all, the longer you are on this Earth the better you know how to deal with your fellow human beings and other socio-physical environments.

In the West we are obsessed with individualism. At university I learned about this teacher's son who was using four letters words and was swearing in his living room while watching TV with his sister and mother. The professor got upset and told the youngster that he had the right to express but he must get his own living room and TV for swearing. The boy responded, "hey old man be nice otherwise I will have to call Family Services to tell them about your cruelty towards me and for trying to control my speech." In these parameters, how do you teach your children manners?

That brings me to Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. or Dubya. Bush Sr. did invade Kuwait to "liberate" it from Saddam's army. Bush Sr. had some excuse as one sovereign nation took over another sovereign nation (although it did not stop the US from doing the same) despite Iraq's claim that Kuwait was always part of Iraq until the British did the division. Also the US ambassador to Iraq indicated to Saddam that the US would not object to such an invasion. I put "liberate" in quotation marks because before Saddam's invasion, Kuwait was probably run by oil barons and it is run by oil barons again who are in bed with local sheiks. It has become a permanent military base for the US to keep a watch on oil resources in the region. Bush Sr. was smart enough to not go beyond Kuwait as he realized that it would be an unwinnable war and a quagmire.

Why did Bush Sr. not give this advice to Dubya as a father and former President that it was a wrong move to invade Iraq. Or Dubya is just like that teacher's son and would consider such advice an intrusion into his ability to decide independently. But he wasn't independent, as it looks Cheney and Rumsfeld made those decisions for him.

Iraq has become the biggest fiasco of the Bush administration and not only the current generations of Iraq and US are suffering but suffering will be passed on to the coming generations. I do not need to explain about Iraq as it is obvious but in case of the US there are over 4000 soldiers who will never come back. Their families and loved ones are trying to cope. Then there are tens of thousands of soldiers coming home with PTSD (Post traumatic syndrome disorder) and what kind families they will raise? Moreover, spending a trillion dollar on this senseless war has brought financial disaster for the US economy. Finally, it has alienated and antagonized the Arab world and Muslim world against the US. Now where are the gains?

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