I have a message for all of America, This message is coming from someone who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and feels betrayed at the way America abandoned our sacrifices. Here is the message: Want to fight a war? Fine. But swear now, on the lives of your children and your souls, that you will allow the US military to fight the war until it is won, in the manner necessary to win it. Otherwise, p*$$ off. Agreed?
@CynicalPublius I made 4 trips to Iraq or Afghanistan. My son made 1 to Afghanistan. He is still in and I'm worried the Administration will try to buy votes with his life.
@CynicalPublius They lied to you, and they lied to us so we would support you; the people haven’t forgotten you and your brothers.
@CynicalPublius You are dreaming the impossible dream.
Too nice. But agreed. I’ve been physically handicapped since 12yo (loooong story) & got significantly worse 20 yrs later). Roller coaster of adolescence. One day I’d like to get my act together & write it all down. Dad was training me to qualify for the USNA in high school. I was good to go but medically disqualified. Both my brothers went there instead. Thank God, b/c I’ve been the most expensive kid with medical bills, college tuition, parental commuting to help take care of the kids, exhaustive testing, multiple meds, etc. anyway, I did the next best thing which was working as a civilian for the DoD. Best jobs I’ve ever had. And the patients really appreciate it when they realize you really care. Priceless. The way medicine should be. The way we should be taking care of our own. Just for the record for your eye-rolling trolls: not respecting veterans is just bad karma. They risk their lives every day so you can have the most meaningless or most fulfilling life you want.
Agreed. When I was at USNA, we had a lecture from an intelligence officer who, among other things, told us (this was many years ago, when it looked like Japan was going to eat our economic lunch), that Japan was nothing to worry about. The reason, he said, was because Japan had not yet started to pay the social costs they promised their workers when they rebuilt after WWII, and that when those bills came due, it would weigh down their economy. He was right. But more germane to this discussion was what he said about how the US fights wars. He said that since WWII we have followed the philosophy of St. Agustin. Said Saint posited that it was the obligation of any free people to free those who were oppressed, but morality dictated that they only use the minimum force necessary to accomplish their goal. Using overwhelming force, or continuing to fight once freedom was established, was immoral. I fear we have taken that philosophy to extremes. We now fight wars to end them, not to reach any objective. If we can get the enemy to stop shooting at us, we consider that a victory. And if they keep shooting at us, we can only shoot back proportionally to their attacks on us. We saw that first in Korea. When you hear someone say that the longest war we ever fought was Afghanistan, remind them that the Korean War has never ended. It's ongoing right now; there's just an armistice. Again, in Vietnam, we fought to not lose, rather than to win, which ended up in our defeat. Somewhat the same in Iraq, and certainly the same in Afghanistan. And in Ukraine, providing them just enough arms and equipment to secure what seems to be a never-ending stalemate. IMHO, we need to be more strategic in how we approach war, rather than the tactical approach we seem to take now. We need to think of war less like checkers and more like chess. President Trump taking out Qasem Soleimani was a strategic move. The Abraham Accords was another. What we have now under Biden is tactical mistake after tactical mistake. Those just lead to ever-increasing tactical engagements with no clear objective other than to get the other guy to shoot at us less. Which, in the Middle East, is not going to happen. It's time to be strategic. I have heard it reported that President Trump back-channeled to Iran, via the Swiss, a list of names of Iranian political and military commanders, telling them that if they killed an American, it would result in one of the names on that list being taken out. They believed him. Will Biden do the same? Or will he just tactically bomb a couple of Houthi weapons depots?
@CynicalPublius And now give better healthcare and services to illegal aliens than our vets!
@CynicalPublius Also when it’s won, we don’t need to stick around to build democracy or some other nation building exercise.