The People have Spoken
DocBrain believes that the strong democrat victory was fueled by opposition to the war in Iraq, which has been building for the last few years. As Americans, we seem to be able to fight a war against an aggressor, but not a war of prevention or protection. Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia/Kosovo, The First Gulf War, and Iraq are recent conflicts where our troops went in harm's way where we were not specifically targeted for an attack. All these wars were unpopular and of dubious necessity, although possibly helpful in some ways. In none of these wars did we win a decisive victory, and in none of them did we pull out all the stops to achieve success. US citizens resented their children dying in these wars.
WWII and Afghanistan were two wars where we were specifically targeted, and in both cases, with few exceptions, there was the will to fight and win on both sides of the political aisle.
Wars classically have been based upon wants and needs, avarice and greed. Some wars have a strong revenge motivation. All these wars were take no prisoners, crush the enemy conflicts.
The new breed of war is the preventative war, one waged afar to prevent armed conflict and suffering, usually at home. Clearly, we are not yet ready to embrace and engage in such conflicts, as judged by the election. Where prevention is only to prevent suffering elsewhere and not here, we see even less public support, so no public outcry to fight in Darfur, for example. When waging a preventative war, the goal is to inflict as little harm to the enemy as possible, as the main body of the enemy is seen as "misguided" or "coerced" by the leaders. Unfortunately, this may not be true. So, we wind up fighting a gentle war and suffering many additional casualties due to our lack of savagry. We do not subdue the enemy; we have no revenge to motivate us and we want nothing from them but for them to not pose a future threat.
As in healthcare, it is always easier to get someone to take medicine once they have a disease and harder to get people to live a clean and healthy life to prevent disease.
If hope is a strategy, I hope that we never suffer any more devestating harm than 9-11. I also hope that we can learn from health care that prevention is sometimes the best medicine.
WWII and Afghanistan were two wars where we were specifically targeted, and in both cases, with few exceptions, there was the will to fight and win on both sides of the political aisle.
Wars classically have been based upon wants and needs, avarice and greed. Some wars have a strong revenge motivation. All these wars were take no prisoners, crush the enemy conflicts.
The new breed of war is the preventative war, one waged afar to prevent armed conflict and suffering, usually at home. Clearly, we are not yet ready to embrace and engage in such conflicts, as judged by the election. Where prevention is only to prevent suffering elsewhere and not here, we see even less public support, so no public outcry to fight in Darfur, for example. When waging a preventative war, the goal is to inflict as little harm to the enemy as possible, as the main body of the enemy is seen as "misguided" or "coerced" by the leaders. Unfortunately, this may not be true. So, we wind up fighting a gentle war and suffering many additional casualties due to our lack of savagry. We do not subdue the enemy; we have no revenge to motivate us and we want nothing from them but for them to not pose a future threat.
As in healthcare, it is always easier to get someone to take medicine once they have a disease and harder to get people to live a clean and healthy life to prevent disease.
If hope is a strategy, I hope that we never suffer any more devestating harm than 9-11. I also hope that we can learn from health care that prevention is sometimes the best medicine.
posted by DocBrain at
8:13 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home