Trump isn’t subtle.
“It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.” Robert E. Lee
“...many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.” William Tecumseh Sherman
“At night I see their faces. All the men I’ve killed. They’re standing there on the far bank of the river Styx. They’re waiting for me. They say, ‘Welcome, brother.’” Brad Pitt as Achilles, in Troy
Military men become drawn to war. Like a moth to a flame. Their thinking clouded by “duty, honor, country,” images of glory, loyalty to their comrades, especially those who have fallen in battle, and also by the doorway to fortune offered by military contractors.
One of the reasons for civilian control of the military is that we cannot allow their willingness to serve decide the matter. We must value them where they are willing to sacrifice themselves.
The “long war” the military imagined we were to fight in the Middle East has already longer lasted than it was supposed to last.
It was good to destroy the Taliban government in Kabul after 9-11, and we did that in short order. The idea of Bush, endorsed and followed through by Obama, of “reconstructing” Afghanistan was always a stupid idea.
As for Iraq, no, the world is not better off because we got rid of Saddam Hussein. That’s how messed up is the Middle East.
Indeed.
Re: the Middle East and nation building, I read Natan Sharansky’s The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror soon after publication and bought into the argument it could be applied to Iraq and Afghanistan.
I came to realize that was completely incorrect, that Islam is completely antithetical to Democracy and Freedom, and no society whose people believe in Islam (which is a political system every bit as much as a religious one) will ever have Democracy and Freedom as understood in the West.
I don’t think Bush ever came to that understanding. He certainly never admitted it if he did.
We’re 15 years late decamping from the Afghanistan punitive expedition at this point. Never should have gone into Iraq.