In Iraq, only adults who volunteer to serve go to fight. There are no “children” or kids there as part of the U.S. military to fight. All of them are 18 or older.

I don’t agree with the way America fights wars, except when we are bombing the shit out of the enemy. We often have too narrow a definition of who the enemy is, in my humble opinion. We use outdated concepts of who is an enemy.

As long as we do that, we will suffer causalities at a higher rate than needed because the enemy will use our reluctance to redefine the enemy to their advantage.

No matter if war was declared by Congress, supported by every American alive, brave Americans would be dying because of outdated concepts of who the enemy is.

We need new definitions and change from the old ways to fight wars. Or else, we should just accept that Americans will die needlessly when we fight.

So when an American dies in the service of our country, he/she should be respected for the sacrifice they made by placing themselves in harm’s way because of an outdated definition they probably believed.

Don

Lies will always be told for almost any cause. It’s up to mature people to be wise enough to know a lie when they see it. Then they have a choice, to be offended by the lie told by another or to go along with the lie.

Then again, I don’t know if I’ve been told any lies in the War on Terror. I don’t know that I need 100% of proof in order to support an attack on any nation that is threatening to America. The principle of “beyond a reasonable doubt” works for me.

Truth hasn’t won any wars in my lifetime either.

I still find it curious that it was the Japanese that actually attacked America in WWII; yet, America decided the Germans needed to be defeated first. It was a winning strategy then.

Did you know that the British Cabinet under Winston Churchill almost voted to accept a Peace Treaty with Germany? That 50% of the Cabinet wanted to accept the terms and let Hitler take all of Europe and leave Great Britain alone? It wasn’t until Churchill gave his “Finest Hour” speech, that the Cabinet came together and rejected the Peace Treaty proposal. Imagine the state of the world today had they accepted that treaty…

Wars are fought for a variety of reasons. Wars are perpetuated (in my humble opinion) because (some) nations follow the “Rules of War” and others don’t. It’s as if those that follow the rules are trying to make war “nice”. I think the terrorists and the terrorist supporting nations believe they can ignore the rules of war and gain a significant advantage in doing so. In many ways, they are winning the war because they do.

Meanwhile Americans lose their lives in many spots of the world due to terrorists and insurgents. I have yet to see one scratch inflicted on Iran or Syria for their terrorist support that kills our people. I have beyond a reasonable doubt about them for a long time.

At some point, I believe America will do what needs to be done to win the War on Terror. We could do so tomorrow if we had the will as a nation to win, but we would rather follow the “rules of war” and end up fighting amongst ourselves over the status of the war while the death count rises for civilians and military folks. In that way, it’s a lot like the Vietnam War years when the arguments were a whole lot more ferocious than today.

If we lose the War on Terror, this world will enter a Dark Ages and never come out. None alive after that will ever know we lost by following the rules of war. No one alive will care…

Don

I doubt anyone in power really believed that Iraq was a credible threat to the US or anyone else. I will refrain from speculation as to the actual motives for starting the war but, as was the case with Viet Nam, lies were used to garner support for it.

Before we joined in that civil war, none of the Vietnamese people were shouting “Death to America”, nor trying to bring death to Americans.

No mater how many Vietnamese would be killed in the civil war, it was none of our business to use force to stop it. America is not and should not be the police force for the world.

Any American that thinks we should be a police force is free to say goodbye to their family and take up arms to go overseas protect whatever they think needs protection. But as an individual, not as a person in American uniform representing a policy of our nation. Best wishes to them.

This is true of places like Korea (early 1950’s), Vietnam (1960’s and 70’s), Bosnia (early 1990’s), Somalia (1994), Beirut (1983), Darfur (present). The list goes on…

The War on Terror is another matter. It was brought upon us, we have to fight.

There is a valid argument about wether we should have invaded Iraq or not. That argument continues in our country.

I don’t believe in occupation. Just vanquish our enemies that threaten us and leave. No nation building, no spending of billions there we could use here.

We should have left Iraq immediately when we didn’t find the WMD’s we thought were there. Without apologies to anyone.

America will continue to be attacked in many ways because we are perceived to be at the top of the chain. Sometimes, we promote ourselves as being at the top of the chain. We get involved in global situations that we need not be involved in at all.

We should learn to stay out of situations where our direct national security is not threatened.

We should defend ourselves, including using overwhelming force (of any and all means at our disposal) to eliminate direct threats against our nation where our security is involved. This includes preemptive attacks to eliminate such threats using whatever approach will bring about the vanquishing in the shortest and cheapest way. Use your imagination!

I do not believe the United Nations can protect any nation. In security matters, that organization is a pitiful joke. That has been in my opinion that way since 1970.

The United Nations can do good work in the areas of medicine, housing, education, birth control, and shelter. But in matters of war, it is useless. Nation states already know from centuries past how to build alliances to make war or defend against war.

Regardless of our individual views, the War on Terror will go on for many decades. What we are involved with now are only the preliminaries. Much worse is ahead for all involved, especially for the nation states in the Middle East that promote terrorism.

Diplomacy will never stop terrorism. If that policy worked, it would have worked in the past and prevented 09/11/2001. For me, terrorist nations had the opportunity to express their views in peaceful ways up until that day. After 9/11, all the talking with terrorists is over in my mind. They don’t deserve a dialog. They deserve to be vanquished in war along with every one of their supporters large or small.

One last point…

America should not try to export Democracy as a matter of national policy (the Peace Corp. and alike notwithstanding). We don’t know how to do that at all. We need to work on our own form of Democracy here and let other nations run whatever way they want. As long as they don’t directly threaten us on security issues, leave them alone.

Our leaders should have known this before we got involved in Vietnam. They didn’t or they ignored it. America still hasn’t learned that lesson yet.

Don