Summer War Drummers

What the hell is it with the oligarchy?  Why are they so enamored of war?

I was working out at the gym and the bank of TVs had sports, etc, but one television had one of those Sunday Morning talk shows where the oligarchs and their lawyer spokemouths compete to see who can shovel the most bullshit.  Of course, I wasn't tuned into the sound, but I doubt the statist toady Chuck Todd asked Barbara Boxer how many millions in war profits she and her husband stood to make off of the Syria action.  They won't make as much as Sanfran lib Diane Feinstein and her husband.  They are the champion war profiteers, making Dick Cheney's Halliburton stock holding look like chump change.  (And by the way, where is that Iraqi oil we supposedly exchanged our blood for?)

We're Not In It To Win It

Anyhoo, I am anti-war for one simple reason:  We haven't won one since 1945.  We're hella good at fighting people and tearing their shit up, but we don't know how to win anymore.  And fighting an unwinnable war is immoral. 

What about Panama? 

It was an invasion, not a war. We killed thousands of people and burned thousands more out of their homes all to take down a Frankenstein's monster that we created.  See, first we create the problem, then we go to war against it.  I know, I know...  The left has been saying this for a long time, and I am loathe to agree with them on anything, but the truth is the truth.

Are Iraqis better off for our efforts?
  
Depends on which faction you ask.  The simple fact that no major thoroughfare in Baghdad has been renamed George Bush Avenue, that no Iraqi holiday expresses thanks to America for 'liberating' them, I'd day the Iraqis have answered my question in the negative. 

Same goes for Afghanistan 

So we got some girls to go to school, rounding them up in one building so 7th century child rapists can kill them all at once.  We've done an immoral thing.  We went against an ancient culture, but we left the gargoyles who guard it in place, and they rape, stone, bomb, slash and murder the people we have wrongly encouraged to stand up and defy them.

Syria:  Islamo-Butchers v. Secular Butchers

In Syria, we're preparing to bomb the one man standing between a Christian minority and the Islamo-fascists who want to butcher them like hogs.  All on the pretext that instead of simply bombing them or machine gunning them in the street, Assad used gas, and the Untied Notions has said that is a no no.  The International Clown Car known as the UN issues absurd pronouncements it cannot back up, and promulgates 'international laws' that it cannot enforce.  It even goes so far as to condemn those foolish enough to try to enforce its laws.  It's madness.

It Really is a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

We live in a mad world, and we are afflicted by the human condition.  We don't have to look far to see something that offends our sense of goodness and humanity, but if history has taught us anything, it is that violence more often than not begets more violence.  The 'good' wars that ended decisively are few, while history is blistered over with ugly scars and gashing wounds that fester and run rivers through successive generations.  It's bad enough out there as it is.  Our crashing around just makes it worse.

Beware people beating war drums who have never been to war.