A lesson from WWII from Spearhead

Just finishing "Spearhead" by Adam Makos. Excellent book. The ending is distressing because the war in Europe is basically lost in mid 1944, but the Nazi party tells the army to fight to the death.  

In the Battle of Cologne, the Nazi party leaders tell the tank crews to continue fighting against encroaching Allies, and that they, the Nazis, would hold the last bridge for the tankers to escape and then blow up the bridge. The tankers are surprised when the Nazis blow the bridge right after the Nazis exit, leaving the soldiers stranded with orders to fight to their death.

A quarter of all deaths in the Reich happen in the last part of the war when the leaders know the war is lost, but keep throwing away the lives of its soldiers and civilians.

It is vitally important that a country's leaders put their citizens' lives above their own political ends. Sadly in the US this is not always the case.

 The US went to war to punish Afghanistan for harboring Osama Bin Laden. To stage the war the US had to give untold fortunes to Pakistan to gain a transportation route into landlocked Afghanistan. Ironically, Pakistan, the recipient of those billions of dollars, was really harboring Osama Bin Laden.

Support America's Troops -- Bring Them ALL Home!

A Small, Overlooked Opportunity Cost of War

We know that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars cost thousands of American lives, four trillion dollars, and perhaps a million Iraq deaths from the chaos that followed, but there's another overlooked cost.

It's the opportunity cost of the time the President and his staff spend in overseeing the war.  We saw that with the Iraq war.

Instead of spending time on say, monitoring the progress on the health care website, the president was spending time pouring over lists of which bad guys to take out with a missile strikes and deciding how many troops were needed.

Wars can just suck the oxygen out of the room of national discourse.  When serious domestic issues need to be discussed, they are shoved out of the way by decisions to be made on the war front.

Next time our government says we really need to invade a country that has done us no harm, let's just say "no", and instead discuss American health care or infrastructure projects, or education, or how to fund more parks.

What to Learn from Donald Trump Being Elected President of the USA?

For many years the United States government has sponsored the overthrow of foreign governments, whether they be democratically elected like in Iran, or strong men we deemed as tyrants like Saddam Hussein, because America knew how to pick a better government than the foreign countries themselves.

Now with the election of Donald Trump, we can at last lay down that burden.

She goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy

John Quincy Adams, 1821, speaking of America:

"Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. "

"The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....
[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."

Oh, if our leaders had listened to John Quincy.

What Benefit for the Average US Citizen Comes from being the World's Policeman?

Dan Carlin had a thought provoking podcast about what benefit do Americans gain from our country being the world policeman. We spend 20% our tax monies on our military and "policing" the world. We spend almost as much money on our military as the entire rest of the world. It costs us dearly, but the average American does not benefit from all that money. Would that we would spend some of that money on curing cancer, ending migraines, or finding a cure for Alzheimer's.