We shouldn’t be fighting wars anymore. We can’t accept the horrors and realities of war any longer. We don’t accept winning a war at any cost the way wars should be fought. That’s why WW2 was the last war we won decisively, and against an enemy that was much more superior than those we have faced since. It’s not that our military got worse. We have the best trained, and equipped soldiers the world has seen, but they are restricted to a level that’s ridiculous. That’s why we have gotten worse at getting decisive victories since then even though we have faced worse enemies. How many people who talk about our WW2 Veterans being the greatest generation, would be calling our troops today war criminals for fighting the same way?
Even a lot of people on the right wouldn’t except fighting a war like WW2 these days, and that’s why we can’t get what should be small short wars over with like we could before. That’s why we talk of an invasion of Iran like it would be something on scale of invading Germany in WW2; because it would be fought to make it the equivalent even though it wouldn’t have to be. It’s like saying we are going to have peace through strength. It doesn’t work when you fight like we did these two wars. If we had went into Iraq and Afghanistan, and showed our real strength with a brutal and short war that showed our true power then that might have worked. But we can’t accept that civilians get killed in war, and there isn’t anyway to avoid that.
If had went into Iraq and Afghanistan with the mindset we went into WW2 then they would have been wars that were over with, and we would have actually gotten something out of it. Why didn’t we take oil from Iraq? Why did we allow Afghanistan to put the right to murder Muslims who convert to Christianity in their Constitution? I think with a WW2 mindset we would have gotten something out of the wars, and finished them in a short period of time. Instead we fight 10+ year wars with no end in sight, and no one even knowing what the hell we are suppose to be gaining from them anymore. If we can’t fight a total war then it’s not important enough to be fighting.
It may surprise many here, but I completely agree with you ThermoNuke. Don't go to war unless you intend to win it with whatever it takes. Get something out of it to teach your enemy a lesson to never touch you again and then get the hell out -- no apologies.
But don't treat it lightly or get into half-wars and nation building or regime change BS. And only go to war for the US, not NATO, or some globalist game. That's what the Declaration of war is all about -- getting the will of the people behind the war. You are at war, you are at war -- we sacrifice and then we come home.
If it were up to me, there wouldn't have been a single poppy field left in the country in Afghanistan by the end of the first week of our attack and the only boots one the ground would have been hunting bin Laden.
As for Iraq, GHB didn't have the guts to finish Saddam off the first time which is why we got stuck in the mud there and had to go slogging back in under GWB. No excuse for that. And Iraq is no better now 20 years later than it was when we first invaded in 1991 -- as a matter of fact it's worse off. Saddam may well have been a bastard, but before Desert Storm, Iraq had one of the most secular Constitutions in the Muslim world -- now Assyrian Christians have been sent running for their lives -- and thanks to the rest of the upheaval we've caused in the region, they have nowhere left to go.
So what did we win? A few months ago a US Congressman was actually thrown out of Iraq when he asked if they would be paying us back. Headshake.
Churchill said "The history of man is war." It's something that can't be avoided. Other countries are very happy to embrace war as part of their foreign policy. Not to mention that the country has gone a bit too far left and started thinking that God's protection isn't required. (When was the last time a day of prayer was called, so that we could be victorious over an enemy with a decisively-perverted worldview that drives him to atrocities that plumb new depths of depravity?)
We shouldn’t be fighting wars anymore. We can’t accept the horrors and realities of war any longer. We don’t accept winning a war at any cost the way wars should be fought