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Posted on 10/16/2025 4:32:54 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Nothing so epitomizes the madness of crowds than nations rushing into the madness of war.
The older I get, the more suspiciously I look at the causes of war. This is natural. Young people — especially young men — are incapable of properly evaluating risk. Though they are rebellious, they also follow orders from authority figures. There is a reason why eighteen-year-olds are sent over embankments to cross open fields on the frontlines: They can be convinced to pursue success and ignore mortality. Courageous young men look right past danger. Only years later do they ask themselves, “Why the hell did I do that?”
There is no question that we are being psychologically prepped for a great and terrible war. Whether you are a civilian, veteran, or active service member, you surely have heard over the last ten years at least one commanding officer describe publicly the likelihood of a U.S.-China war or wider WWIII in the near future.
European politicians have been instructing their citizens to prepare for a full-on military conflict with Russian forces since the current war in Ukraine began. Such civilian war preparations have not been limited to the Baltic states, Finland, or Poland. France and the United Kingdom have spent the last several years conditioning citizens to expect bloodshed with the Russian Federation.
During the half-century Cold War, violence operated mainly in the shadows and through “proxies” so that the United States and the Soviet Union could at least pretend they were not directly fighting one another. Such was the shared fear of nuclear weapons — and of mutually assured destruction — that even bitter enemies did what they could to limit runaway escalation. The Moscow-Washington hotline — or what Hollywood mythologized as the doom-averting “red phone” — was established because both sides understood
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Haven’t we learned our lesson about being dragged into wars that are not our own?
I’d like to see the author’s evidence of this. Frankly, I don’t think there are too many people alive today who would even bother fighting a war.
“War is the health of the State.”
Randolph Bourne.
He wrote that during WWI.
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The MIC has learned the lesson that even proxy wars can be quite profitable.
I remember being in high school ad being disgusted with those who fled to Canada to avoid the draft - these days, I realize they were the smart ones - they didn’t let down their country/government - their country betrayed them.
A very interesting article that probes into the mind-think of those being manipulated as well as the manipulators.
So - those of us who fought and bled for our country in Vietnam were the wrong side? We were fighting the latest push by the communists to overwhelm an ally and we were supposed to stand by and watch as Southeast Asia and the Straits of Malacca fell to the Soviets and the Chinese?
The roots of our involvement in Vietnam were tangled but those of us who went saw in person the suffering and the bravery of the South Vietnamese - and we, the best our country had - invested our lives there.
Before you jump on the left's bandwagon, remember that your younger instincts were right: the draft-avoiders, the pro-enemy_"Peace" activists were helping the enemy while those few of us were fighting.
Excellent post, but for years I’ve made this point: A government policy of drafting American citizens to engage in combat halfway around the world without any Congressional declaration of war has no place in this constitutional republic.
Well, we learned in the lead-up to WWII that ignoring other's wars and pretending it will just go away got us bit in the bum at Pearl Harbor.
We tend now to think US victory was inevitable, but forget that we were damn lucky the carriers were not at Pearl Harbor and that Heisenberg flubbed his reactor experiments.
The Atlantic and Pacific are a lot smaller in practical terms than they ever have been.
The US is in an unparalleled strategic position because we have almost every natural resource we need in North America and the tech to use it. But we have tossed a lot of that geostrategic advantage away by tying our economy far too closely to China.
The Chinese in contrast are almost exactly the opposite: they have rare earths, some coal and not much else and are strategically vulnerable because of the island chains surrounding their coast, islands we control or with which we have strong alliances. China needs control of the Pacific to protect itself but so do we. There's no way to square that circle.
Hindsight will always be 20-20. My brother was a draft ‘evader’. Went into hiding.
His first reaction was “I gotta go.”
Our father’s response: “It AINT THAT YOU GOTTA GO! CHEVRON AND STANDARD OILL GET THEIR MONEY THERE. YOU THINK THEY’RE GONNA SEND THEIR KIDS TO FIGHT? INSTEAD THEY SEND YOU THERE YOU STUPID ASS!”
He came up short as a father but that was his way of showing he loved us.
Drafting is a difficult solution when you need a lot of young men to conduct a war at long distance AND to be ready for a major Soviet attack at any time.
I don’t believe that draftees should be used for direct combat - that takes a skill set and a mental commitment most men don’t have - but there were a lot of supporting positions they could have filled instead.
Drafting American men is tough - but keeping our way of life and our survival requires a commitment to serve if we are called.
As I recall Ike warned us about this very thing way back in the 1950’s.
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Wars are terrible things with lasting effects. Its amazing that so many people have a casual "no consequences for me" attitude about it. If the next war leads to use of nuclear weapons virtually nobody on this earth knows where or how it would end. One thing we do know however, is that if nukes are used life on earth as we know will never be the same again. We will all be affected by it. So best to avoid life altering consequences whenever possible.
Drafting American men is tough - but keeping our way of life and our survival requires a commitment to serve if we are called.
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Serving the country is noble but serving to support never ending wars, nation building, social engineering, and profiteering is not. Our military is not always used to support vital national interests unfortunately.
Me too, but still I seriously doubt Hamas will live up to what it agreed to. If not, Hamas should be wiped off the face of the earth to the extent possible.
“”””I remember being in high school ad being disgusted with those who fled to Canada to avoid the draft - these days, I realize they were the smart ones - they didn’t let down their country/government - their country betrayed them.””””
Those guys were scum and cowards, if you had interacted with them you would have seen what low lifes they were.
Resisting the draft could be done in an upright manner where one opposed it openly and faced the consequences if any were imposed, that was not in the character of those sleazy border crossers.
“””””I don’t believe that draftees should be used for direct combat - that takes a skill set and a mental commitment most men don’t have - but there were a lot of supporting positions they could have filled instead.”””””
About 70% of our combat losses of WWII were draftees.
Draftees fought WWII, all the branches including the Coast Guard drafted, our forces were about 61% draftee and the Army fighting in the Pacific, North Africa, and Europe was 93% draftee.
“””””My brother was a draft ‘evader’. Went into hiding.”””””
That is a draft dodger, a draft evader is more like the guys who work within the legal system, like getting deferment after deferment, or switching their major over to teacher to win immunity when they never wanted to be a teacher.
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