"Our Armed Forces Are There To Protect Our Allies Overseas"
Condolezza Rice 9/15/02

by James Glaser
September 18, 2002

I almost jumped out of my chair when I heard Ms. Rice utter those words. I shut off the TV and quick wrote those words down. Ms. Rice was answering a question from an editor of a Kentucky newspaper on the ABC show "This Week." George Stephanopoulos was the host and it went right over his head along with George Will, who could only think about giving whiskey to voters in Florida.

Neither George Stephanopoulos nor George Will, or for that matter Condolezza Rice have ever been in the Armed Forces of the United States and there for had no idea of how important that remark was. Americans that sign up to defend our country are making a selfless act for the betterment of all of us. When signing on that dotted line, most are thinking they will be making America safe from outside forces.

For a National Security advisor to the President to now tell us that those in Washington believe that our troops can be used for the defense of lets say Egypt or Saudi Arabia (both countries supplied terrorists on September 11th) is a real stretch. when one reads the Constitution. How many young Americans would sign up to defend South Africa, they are after all an ally.

Washington keeps telling us how we helped Germany to rebuild and what a success that was. Over fifty years and we still have troops in Germany. If it was such a success why the troops? The Cold War is over. Somebody is making millions off those troops. Who are those troops defending Germany from? Korea, fifty years later and we still have thirty some thousand troops over there and Korea is a real success story with a real first rate Army and an economic power in the far east. Who is making millions off those troops?

You can go to about a hundred countries all over the globe and repeat these same lines. Their are corporations that make almost all of their money off our defense of other nations or our occupying armies. These are not always American corporations, but they are all paid with American Tax payer dollars.

If the Bush Administration believes that American forces are there to defend other countries soil, then we as citizens had better start telling them what is what.

American forces are for the defense of America period. One of the main reasons that people in so many countries are distrustful of America and its policies, is the fact that we occupy their nation with our armies. Just think how you would feel if foreign troops were moving around the United States in Armored personal carriers or just driving around in jeeps and trucks, always with their rifles at the ready. Think about all the bars and brothels that would spring up around their bases.

Well that is what so many countries of this world have to look at every day, American troops in their homeland. Those in the Bush Administration and Washington in general can't see the harm this does to our countries image. They think those people love us because the only people that those in Washington talk to are those people making money off our troops.

Just like the President and Congress can't see the suffering of the elderly in America deciding between food and prescription drugs, because they have a wonderful health plan, they assume all people do.

I personally saw the hate in the eyes of every young man in the Philippines and Okinawa because of the way their women were treated by American troops. Most young Americans in the service believe that every woman in these countries is a whore or wants to be one. I wish that wasn't true any more, but all of the e-mail that I have received from service personal, say it is still that way. Also they tell me that no officers ever try to curb this activity by American troops.

The flippant attitude that a woman in the position of Condolezza Rice, (National Security Advisor) holds for the job that our Armed Forces have, is so very wrong, but not a surprise. The American Armed Forces are there for one job only and that is to protect our country. That is it PERIOD!!! Expanding that job to protect other countries is wrong.