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the DOD does not care what it does to the nation. they are making money. its us that should care. we need to elect ron paul and throw the rest out. stop invading other countries and start defending our own.
Viet Nam didn't teach us a damned thing. We never learn anything from the last war, except how to fight it better, and we are never prepared for the war we get.
Our present military forces, at less than 1% of our population, has taken more mental strain from continued re-deployment than any other army we have ever fielded. There is nothing any President can do for those folks except increase the medical funding that will be needed for their treatment now. And you can bet that any President will have a hard time getting bills like that made into law.
As long as we have a Congress stuffed full of members who have never been in a war, or even saw the damage first-hand, we can expect only more of the same and possibly worse to follow.
The same people that brought us the fiasco in Iraq and Afghanistan are more than ready to launch us into a nightmare with Iran and potentially world war 3. They are already gearing up the same dog and pony show they used to launch the Iraq war, like the "satellite photos of activity suspected to be involved with nuclear development" that looks like the photos of the "mobile weapons of mass destruction labs". I wouldn't doubt those photos aren't even from Iran at all and that some of the "intelligence" people sending them out are laughing over some beers with $100 bet on whether anyone will ever figure out the photos are 10 years old and from another country.
Yet there are plenty who are gobbling up all the war propaganda and itching for war with Iran despite how horrible of an idea it would be.
Viet Nam didn't teach us a damned thing. We never learn anything from the last war, except how to fight it better, and we are never prepared for the war we get.
Our present military forces, at less than 1% of our population, has taken more mental strain from continued re-deployment than any other army we have ever fielded. There is nothing any President can do for those folks except increase the medical funding that will be needed for their treatment now. And you can bet that any President will have a hard time getting bills like that made into law.
As long as we have a Congress stuffed full of members who have never been in a war, or even saw the damage first-hand, we can expect only more of the same and possibly worse to follow.
I blame George Bush for that.
On Sept, 12, 2001, he addressed the nation and we were all just waiting for a call to arms, a call to sacrifice, but all we got was "go to the mall" and let them handle the war. If he had called for a draft right then we'd have all happily supported it, but he didn't.
It was a major, major miscalculation from which we may not recover and the root cause of our troops being worn out now. Remember what Rumsfeld said? "You go to war with the Army you've got."
No, Mr. Secretary, you BEGIN a war with the Army you've got and you FINISH it by marshaling every available resource, including manpower.
However, we had a draft and calls to sacrifice in Vietnam, and that didn't make much difference. The real lesson from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan (and Somalia) is that nation-building tends to be a fool's errand. Even if it could work in theory, it would take a commitment spanning several US administrations, and that is difficult to acheive given our politics.
I think a better model for dealing with acts of terrorism might be how Reagan handled Khadafy after the Lockerbie bombing. Reagan launched a short but devastating missile attack that scared the @#$$ out of Khadafy and calmed him down for the next 25 years. Or how Obama handled Osama. A quick but devastating retaliation to put the fear of God into them, and then get out of there. Or even how HW Bush handled Saddam. All three were success stories, and what they had in common, or rather didn't have, is that there was no nation-building involved.
Location: Democratic Peoples Republic of Redneckistan
11,078 posts, read 15,087,778 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wutitiz
However, we had a draft and calls to sacrifice in Vietnam, and that didn't make much difference. The real lesson from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan (and Somalia) is that nation-building tends to be a fool's errand. Even if it could work in theory, it would take a commitment spanning several US administrations, and that is difficult to acheive given our politics.
I think a better model for dealing with acts of terrorism might be how Reagan handled Khadafy after the Lockerbie bombing. Reagan launched a short but devastating missile attack that scared the @#$$ out of Khadafy and calmed him down for the next 25 years. Or how Obama handled Osama. A quick but devastating retaliation to put the fear of God into them, and then get out of there. Or even how HW Bush handled Saddam. All three were success stories, and what they had in common, or rather didn't have, is that there was no nation-building involved.
WOW..you and I are finally in total agreement on something...maybe the Mayan prediction is coming early
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