That I am in favor of withdrawing our troops from germany and other places. I think they are better used elsewhere for national security reasons.
That said , you are right bob perception is every thing. yours and perhaps much of the world's is hugely skewed in this situation. My unit has been deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan and in the Iraq deployment much of the time was spent on humanitarian missions. Providing clean water to villages that hadn't had any in 25 years. building medical clinics and schools, installing sewer systems in towns that had never had them previously. we are loved and thanked daily by a majority of the country. i also have several civilian patients that have been over there for three plus years on 6 and 2 schedules training policemen. They continue to return because they see the good that is happening there.
We see the worst ten percent on the evening news here. If it bleeds it leads as they say. I would love to see us finish and get out but the crrent situation is not stable and chaos would be the result and we sould certainly bear culpubility in that chaos as we do in the current situation.
There are a lot of hard truths to WAR and as a person who has served 13 years I can say I am thankful that there are people capable of dealing with those hard truths. (not all are obviously) Some great man said this " it is good that war is so terrible or we would come to love it too much" General Robert E Lee maybe? anyway, there is so much more to the situation than we see on CNN and FOX that we really have no business passing judgement on many of the people involved.
disclaimer: I in no way endorse the abuse of animals in any situation. Euthinasia should not be practiced by throwing a puppy off a cliff. A quick painless death is acceptable if necessary and the most humane choice but not throwing the poor thing off of a cliff.