U.S. should re- consider its presence in the Middle East

To the Editor:

Once more, in what amounts to a grim repeat of so many similar past national security catastrophes, a series of events in an obscure Middle Eastern local has brought a combination of tragedy and scandal to elements of America’s military. A raid on an al-Qaeda facility in Yemen cost the life of a U.S. Navy Seal, the life of the eight-year old daughter of American-born al-Qaeda member Anwar al-Awhlaki, and the lives of additional civilians. About the only positive thing that can be said about this incident is that the SEALs’ training and combat skills kept even worse things from happening. What a tragic mess!

The entire Middle East appears doomed to being an accursed place so far as the U.S. national security apparatus is concerned, and it is fair to ask a simple question:

“If men as supremely skilled and immensely tough as U.S. Navy SEALs can’t quite achieve undiluted operational success against these bands of burnoosed Middle Eastern rapscallions, then who can?” Losing a SEAL and inflicting a number of civilian deaths in a raid does not define “success”. Did someone traitorously tip off al-Qaeda’s thugs that the SEALs were coming?

Afghanistan’s endless and senseless strife is still our “baby”, as it has been since October of 2001, and it rands as (by far) “the longest war in U.S. history.” We’re still pouring weapons, training and gobs of money into Iraq’s conflict with ISIS.

The “Great Battle for Mosul” is still going on. And, in just the past few days, the U.S. once more has returned to interacting with Iran in the language of threats and confrontation. U.S. money and U.S. blood continue to be expended throughout the sun-scorched and sandblasted Middle East in a vain quest for something approaching stability.

Otto Von Bismarck, that perceptive old Prussian politician, once contemptuously wrote off Europe’s unstable Balkans region by saying that it “wasn’t worth bones of a single Pomeranian Grenadier”.

Maybe some similary perceptive guy (or gal) in President Donald Trump’s establishment will likewise conclude that “all of the Middle East isn’t worth the bones of a single U.S. Navy SEAL”.

That entire area is downright incorrigible, and probably is under some type of hex. America may in the end be forced to consider simply washing its hands of the region.

Frank W. Goheen

Vancouver, Wash.