If the CCP invades, will you fight?

[Charlie_Jack]

@QuaSaShao

Looks like Iraq after Operation Iraqi Freedom fifteen years ago.

If that’s directed at me, you’re preaching to the choir.

I wrote the below about eighteen years ago, when I had the username @xp_10K:

@xp_10K

So far, I’ve been lukewarm to cold on our strange little deal in Iraq, but you guys on the left are gonna fool around and get me to believe we’re making the right moves.

Again, about eighteen years ago:

@xp_10K

But if Mr. Hitt’s point is that it’s not a good idea for politicians to stress religion too much, and especially if they have any notion they may be conducting bombing raids and making troop deployments at any time in the foreseeable future, then he gets no dispute from me.

Again, around the same time:

@xp_10K

Ah, but I strongly disfavor Americans, military or civilian, dying to keep anything American except America, and I only go along with the latter if it’s absolutely necessary.

About fourteen years ago, with my current username:

@Charlie_Jack

Well, the older I get the more isolationist I get, and the way I feel right now, I don’t think I would mind too much if the U.S. withdrew from all of its current predicaments.

About five years before I was born, the State of Israel came into existence in Palestine (former British Mandate, and before that, part of the Ottoman Empire). I was born less than two months after the end of the war in Korea (former Japanese colony). At the outset of that war, the U.S. committed itself to protect the ROC on Taiwan (former Japanese colony). When I was in elementary school, my country sent first advisers then regular combat troops to Vietnam (former French colony). In my late 20s, the U.S. sent troops to Lebanon (former French Mandate, and before that, part of the Ottoman Empire). In my thirties, the U.S. sent troops to Kuwait (for many years a sort of British protectorate de facto, and before that, Subprovince in the Ottoman Empire) and Iraq (former British Mandate, and before that, Province of the Ottoman Empire). And now, in addition to being once again involved in Iraq, we have troops in combat in Afghanistan, a country that was once fought over by the Russian and British empires.

My country somehow keeps wandering into the haunted ruins of empires and getting lost among the ghosts and demons there.