WAR: U.S. doesn't learn history lessons

The Obama Presidency seems to want to prolong the agony and keep us in a state of war. He's agreed to pull most of our combat troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan and now he's sending a contingent of 100 U.S. troops to the continent of Africa. What has the U.S. got to fear from the tribal fighting that has existed in this region for centuries which was the original excuse to get us involved in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

We, as a country don't seem to learn from someone else's previous mistakes. We got involved in Vietnam after the French were smart enough to see they couldn't win. After the Russians saw they couldn't win in Afghanistan, we decided we thought we could. Now that we are pulling out of Iraq, we think we can control things in an African area that has had continual fighting and overthrow of dictatorships for centuries. We should remember about Uganda's ruthless past dictators, the killings and starvations in the Sudan, house burnings, rapes and mutilations in the Central African Republic.

All these same things are happening in the Republic of the Congo. The Obama administration thinks our young warriors are expendable anywhere he wants to send them even to countries where we have no business being. We already have small contingents in Djibouti and Somalia, where the documentary "Black Hawk Down" took place.

This president should understand that deploying our troops along our southern border would be far more profitable and successful than chasing Africans around in their own country where they know what is best for them.

With many countries now taking a second look at what is happening here in the U.S., and the bog-down of our government in Washington, most are asking "Do we want a government like theirs?" We appear to be leaning more and more toward a Socialistic government with protest and riots the possibility in the future to get changes to take place here in the good old USA. Many former successful republics and societies have been overthrown and eventually disappeared. Study your history and see if this isn't true.

BILL SINGLETON

Coeur d'Alene