If I was a Palestinian and saw a huge American aircraft carrier parked off the Gaza coast and there were rumblings from Washington that the US was preparing to enter the war, I would be overjoyed. Just look at the US war record.
It fought the Vietcong for decades yet lost the war and had to hand North Vietnam over to the enemy. The cost: 1.3-million Vietnamese lives and 58,000 Americans.
Closer to home the Americans abetted and supported SA’s military intrusion into Angola, only to drop it in the poop as the South Africans were about to enter the capital.
It went to war with Iraq, never found any of the claimed “weapons of mass destruction”, and ended up with its tail between its legs.
Then it went into Afghanistan to eliminate the Taliban, and after a protracted war with enormous costs in both dollars and personnel, had to leave in hurry, abandoning sophisticated military hardware. So, not only does it lose the war but it kitted out the enemy in the process.
The Americans are very anti-Russian at the moment, yet whereas Ukraine is heavily engaged in a war to stop the Russian invasion of its sovereign territory the Americans are sitting on their hands. Some friend and ally!
History is firmly against whoever the Americans back and with whoever they want to eliminate, which seems to be a popular word nowadays in the context of the horrors of the Middle East.
If history repeats itself, as it always does, we are in for a horrendous trip to hell, unless people come to their senses.
Dr Peter Baker
Parktown North
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