Sponsored Content




Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!



Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups

NoVaMoMe 2024: 06/08/2024
Arlington, VA
Details to follow


Texas MoMe 2024: 10/18/2024-10/19/2024 Corsicana,TX
Contact Ben Had for info





















« The Leftist Chattering Class: Are They Dumb, Evil, Or Both? | Main | Food Thread: Don't Slap That Sausage Into Just Anything! »
May 26, 2019

From Foreign Policy Hawk to Careful Partial-Isolationist....

NormandyCemetery.JPG

[The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial: Colleville-sur-Mer, France]

In my callow youth the idea of a robust and aggressive military presence in most of the world seemed like a fine idea. Why not back up our foreign policy blather with some actual, concrete control of world events. I lived in a part of the country that had a significant military presence, and the people I met in that community were overwhelmingly intelligent and thoughtful. I don't recall a single person who was even remotely the Hollywood image of a soldier.

If those were the people who would conduct our foreign interventions, then we were in very good hands. They cared for their men, they loved our country, and they were careful and wary and did not romanticize war.

But they are not the people who conduct our wars. They are the men who die. The people who conduct our wars have -- while perhaps not believing it -- behave as if the lives of our men in uniform are worthless; that their sacrifices are simply tools to further a political agenda quite detached from the best interests of the country and its citizens.

September 11, 2001 was a watershed moment for many, because the great majority of Americans had no concept of an existential threat. Oh, they heard stories from their fathers and grandfathers about World War II, but America was the greatest and most powerful country in history...nothing could shake our foundations!

Except for 19 men and four passenger jets. As usual, the tools of war had changed faster than the minds of the men who planned them, and we were faced with a new kind of enemy, one that had very little infrastructure, very little in the way of...well...anything except an ideology, and in fact had no country of its own.

So off we went, determined to kill them all and rebuild them better than ever, with no thought of how that would be done, or if it could be done at all. And on the way we lost sight of the "kill them all" part, and collapsed into a morass of conflicting goals and political correctness, and the shocking idea that our armed forces weren't supposed to kill people and break things.

All that did was get a lot of fine men killed, a lot of money wasted, and create a discordant set of ideas about the military.

But it did change my mind, and the journey is mostly complete. The current state of affairs in the world requires one of two responses from America. We either enter conflicts with overwhelming force and a clearly defined goal of winning, or we do not enter at all. The lives of American servicemen are simply too valuable to use them in politically calculated half measures.

No more rules of engagement that guarantee American deaths. No more carefully titrated responses that are vetted by multiple layers of bureaucracy.

Should we assist our allies with logistical support? Of course! Should we use air power and naval power in their support and in support of our own objectives? Yes, if the benefit far outweighs the risk. But boots on the ground in faraway places where American soldiers shed their blood in place of others who should be bleeding and dying for their causes?

No. Never.


digg this
posted by CBD at 02:15 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
garrett: ">>Virgin Rock. I think she's originally German. Sh ..."

Philip: "[i]107 We Baptists can drink alcohol...[/i] Spi ..."

tubal: "111 We Baptists can drink alcohol... Posted by: t ..."

Catch Thirty-Thr33: "There's one Harpist that does those and I can watc ..."

Way, Way Downriver [/i][/b]: "Any truth to the claim that minutes after Trump pa ..."

illiniwek: ""Guilty as hell, free as a bird" Obama's ghost ..."

Diogenes: "We Baptists can drink alcohol... Posted by: tubal ..."

OrangeEnt: "Yeah, I don't get those either. You can tell the " ..."

iHeart Radio: "There’s a podcast about people who give no s ..."

pookysgirl, Rush Baby: "Podcasts are just radio talk shows, with video. ..."

tubal: "We Baptists can drink alcohol... ..."

garrett: "I like the reaction videos done by the Classical M ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64