I am not going to add to this article except to note that violence, unrest, political and religious strife, Western involvement and betrayal and local injustice have plagued the Middle East for nearly a hundred years in modern times; intensifying and never ending since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Oil is the root cause for some of this, but today it is much more.
The question now is can and should we simply walk away? What does the Arab/ Muslim world want? Do they even know themselves?
… In 2005, when I began visiting Section 60, the burials were constant. The remains of those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan came to dominate some two dozen rows in the 18-acre plot, 876 fallen warriors in all.
But recently, Section 60 has begun to tell a different story — of the end of wars. Other than Greene, there have been only two active-duty burials since May, Arlington officials report. Most of the recent headstones near Greene’s resting place are of veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam who died long after they served. In other words, Section 60 is gradually returning to what it was before the remains of young men and women began a decade ago to fill its rows with heartbreaking rapidity: An ordinary graveyard.
It will never be ordinary, of course, for those of us who lived during this time. As of Thursday morning, 6,831 American military personnel had been killed in what used to be called the “war on terror”: 4,425 in Iraq, 2,203 in Afghanistan and 203 elsewhere. Over 50,000 have been wounded in action.
And what do we have to show for it? Much of Iraq (and neighboring Syria) has fallen under the control of barbaric religious extremists, and hopes for a stable Iraq rest largely on the goodwill of Iran. Afghanistan — home of the “good war” — looks all too likely to fall apart after American forces leave.
But disillusionment with the conflicts shouldn’t at all affect the gratitude we feel toward those who lie in Section 60. Indeed, it would do all Americans some good to forget the political second-guessing and to recall what these men and women did for us.
Dana Milbank, August 15, 2014 The Washington Post
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Second Submission: The “Arab/Muslim world” in the Middle East has been embroiled in murderous acts of violence for hundreds of years in the names of their various religious sects. Their religions dictate that they each kill all “non-believers”. There are no logical arguments to support any hope that these ingrained beliefs will ever change.
The British first discovered oil in what is now northern Iraq in 1903 when the entire Middle East was populated by illiterate and barbaric tribal nomads. Rather than conquering and subjugating the entire region to milk that huge oil reserve, “the West” humanely decided, during the ensuing years, to grant ownership of that huge energy reserve to the leaders of the barbaric tribal nomads as independent nations. The fate of “the West” was thereby sealed to be oil dependent upon the barbaric Middle East. That’s the history in a very small nutshell.
Fast forward to today: The religiously dictated massacres have only increased with no hope of ever ending.
“What does the Arab/Muslim world want?”, you ask? The pragmatists within ISIS and elsewhere in the Middle East want wealth and power. The ideologues within ISIS and elsewhere in the Middle East want an Islamic world and “72 virgins” when they die in combat for Allah.
The answer to your posting is as follows:
1) Yes, we rid ourselves of Middle East oil dependency, walk away and watch as they kill one another for another several hundred years.
2) Yes, we free the NSA to do whatever they have to do – even at the price of our personal privacy – to protect us from these barbaric maniacal terrorist killers.
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Wilson, I didn’t think that I would ever agree with you but have to say I definately agree with you points 1 and 2.
As far as the 72 virgins, what a disappointment they will have when the die.
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