You did say "wars" and not "war."
As we are in wars. We haven't focused on one response, but rather expanded once we got there. You can lump it all together under the Forever War if you want.
If I wanted more government the way you say we must, then I would assume that you believe we want more attacks on America. After all, that is the justification for what you call "more government."
You can assume anything you want. But depending on the assumption, it may not reflect well upon your intellect. Support of the Forever War (happy? I didn't use a plural there) is support of expanded government, expanded debt, expanded spending. What is it you people are supposed to stand for now?
The answer is that we did not want any attacks in the first place and we want to ensure that we are not attacked again. You may disagree about the drone strikes, but they have killed many of the Taliban and al Qaeda, aka, enemies. You may not like why we went into Iraq. To this day, I still believe it was the correct thing to do for our safety. I'm sure you deny that. That's okay. That means we differ over how we view that war. But, that does not mean that I want more government. If you have read my postings, you know that would be a falsehood.
Words are wind. Anyone can say they want smaller government, but when you back big government, big interventionist, big spending, big deficit, big war, big brother government it speaks opposite of your words. Iraq did not threaten OUR safety, not in the least. And what threat do we have? A bunch of people flew some planes into a building.....once. Guess what? Given enough time, we'll have another terrorist attack on our soil proper. They're infrequent, always have been, but they do happen from time to time. I, for one, do not believe that Forever War is the correct approach to dealing with it. In fact, you may put us at greater risk through interventionist means in countries we have no business attacking. Just piss people off, and pissed off people do violent and irrational things....like terrorism. Enjoy the blowback, I won't be on the planes because TSA is well too aggressive. But I suppose some are willing to sacrifice freedom and liberty for a perceived "safety".
Sorry, I forgot about the doubling of deaths. War is hell!! Whenever war is waged, people die. The military people know that. If you do not want anyone to die in a war, then you would not support the effort in Afghanistan.
Wrong! People do die in war and we need to UNDERSTAND that first off. When you say "3000 people died...we have to do something", you're using death as excuse. But that's a flawed argument because the use of our wars have already more than doubled that number. So it can't be the death of Americans, else you would be well more careful in the conflicts that you call for. 3000 of our innocent die, and that's excuse to go into the place. But we'll throw over 3000 lives of our service men away for it. What's the total number up to in all our operations?
Afghanistan WAS a legitimate target, back in 2001 as it was appropriate response to the attack on our sovereignty. But that response ends when other sovereign states have done nothing to threaten our sovereignty. Which would mean no Iraq and no Pakistan and none of the other ****. You issue a Declaration of War against Afghanistan, go in there and force them to surrender to our terms. Then you're done, that was the appropriate response. The response not taken. Instead, Forever War is endorsed. We're broke and people still want to engage in Forever War. How the hell are we going to pay for this? ****, all the money we spend there could be better spent on our own People. Without the loss of additional American life.
The idea of war is to kill more of the enemy than you lose and the idea of a war is to win. If you don't win a war, the enemy is likely to come back and do bad things all over again. And, if you leave the battle before it is finished, the dead will have died in vain. My creed is not to have people die in vain.
The idea of war is to force the other side to give up. The last two statements of yours are incredibly sad. Essentially we ****ed up, but we can't accept the **** up because acknowledging it means those dead have died in vain. So instead we're going to FURTHER SACRIFICE more life for the sake of our pride. Your creed is that of Captain Brannigan. Send wave after wave of your own men after them. Not really the best way to go.
I prefer to think of it not in the terms of throwing men at a problem until it goes away, but rather my duty...OUR duty to our military. They have committed to give up their lives if necessary for our freedom and our liberty and to protect our sovereignty. It is OUR duty, OUR responsibility to only call upon that commitment when OUR sovereignty is directly threatened. Otherwise you do no service to our military personnel other than think of them as mere pawns to be thrown at foreign conflicts which do not defend our freedom and sovereignty. Which I think is a bit sick.
I remember when you conservatives where non-interventionist, non-State building believers. If we could only go back. But instead, we got the big government type throwing wind about being small government but performing no action to prove it.