Who Won The War

I think the more powerful a country is the more military wars it wages. Yet, those powers wage them in a more sublime way than do two weak nations who still slug it wars the old fashioned way. Sometimes you don't even know if countries are fighting a war or whether one they have fought has ended. Too, it's impossible these days to tell who won and lost wars because most wars don't involve the old territorial switches that marked old time war. Too, most wars today aren't of the shoot them up military type. They are more often economic or diplomatic now, since weapons are really too powerful to use today as toys. War may have been a game or amusement for despots in earlier centuries. But now it's too risky to start a war unless there is a perceived necessity to do so.

But as to military wars, the United States is surely involved in way too many of the quiet types. Look at the war in Iraq for an example. It started as a military conflict, simmered and now it's impossible to even define what it is. Is there a war going on their now involving United Sates troops, or is it just a military "presence"? I can't tell. I also don't know if the U.S. "won" the war? They did overthrow a dictator, but the Iraqi's have bled the U.S economy so much to pay for that war, I think Iraq may be said to be the victor as much as the United States. The round one military part goes to the U.S. The aftermath clearly is an Iraqi win. American taxpayers are the clearest losers.

One would think that Obama would fulfill his campaign promises to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan in the so called Afghan war. But all politicians lie (Obama is such a master liar that he must make George Bush proud)) and while running for president claim they will withdraw immediately from the conflict. But after being elected, they are seduced into thinking they can "win the war" and gain political benefits. So they continue and expand the war. It rarely happens that way. Almost all politicians wind up suffering for their deceit and losing or being hurt in their re election attempt.

I am also not sure if the Afghanistan escapade is a war. The U.S allegedly entered that broken nation to catch "terrorists" (whatever that means) not to attack the nation's military, government or citizens. Supposedly the U.S was "invited" into the country by the government that was pushed aside by the Taliban. It's hard to fight a military conflict when you don't know who the target is. The Russians learned that lesson and left Afghanistan in the 80's, but the U.S. didn't learn from it, still remains and increases cost and troop counts there fighting an invisible enemy. The loss of life there is an abomination (Obamination).

Often times small nations provoke big ones in order to get them to invade them. Then the small guys quickly surrender and wait for the big conqueror to pour in billions of dollars to "rebuild" the country. Every nation that wins a war now is obliged to bankrupt itself rebuilding the country it destroyed in the war. In that case the clear winner is the small nation which gets brand new every things at the expense of the power, and is almost always quickly left alone to run itself thereafter. Most of the time the big country only wants the right to put a strategic military base in the conquer country, something they could have had far more cheaply if they had just paid a higher premium to the small nation for it. If I were the leader of a poor nation I might want to declare war on the U.S or Japan and then wait for the money to roll in after surrendering.

A good thing about the death of military wars is that it is killing the phony flag waving patriotism that politicians use to slicker constituents into supporting their ambitions. Flag waving as justification for slaughter is becoming a thing of the past. Patriotism as defined in the military terms we most often get it today, really is "the last refuge of the scoundrel". I don't see much flag waving here anymore. People understand that war as policy is archaic. Now if we could just get the politicians to believe the same thing...