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Comment by dumb-saint | Hacker News Reader

With no lack of empathy for the veterans (of all countries) and the horrible things they go through...

Don't you guys ask yourself how come you are always at war? Why you have "generations of veterans", even though you have by far the most powerful military force to ever have existed?

There is no credible conventional threat to the US, and there is no unconventional one that can be mitigated by fighting a war.

Not participating in unnecessary wars would help the mental health of soldiers much more than therapy or whatever else.

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> Don't you guys ask yourself how come you are always at war?

Actually, I'm a veteran, son of a veteran, son of a son of a veteran, and we all served in between wars, so we're not exactly "always at war".

But all bullshit aside, why would you lay that kind of blame on the people who rolled the dice (choosing between enlisting and working at DQ to pay off their double-wide) and now have to go out and do the job, versus the people who are making a profit every time we shoot off a $200K TOW round? There are, like, half a dozen people in the Army who could raise their hand and say "let's have a war" and have it actually mean anything, but you're asking veterans why they fight wars.

Oh, I think you misunderstood me. I don't blame the people who enlist at all. I also point my finger at the profit-makers.

When I say "you guys" I mean "Americans". All of you.

PS: What a weird thing to down vote this post -- it simply clarifies my initial message.

Ah yes, because average Americans control US geopolitical strategy.

So you gave up on democracy?

First: The U.S. is a republic.

Second: Your idealism is compelling, yet you overstate the facilities available to the common citizen.

Third: Pointing the finger at 'Americans' and saying 'Why don't you quit fighting so much?' only serves to feed the narrative that Americans are war-hungry.

Case in point: there is not a single military battle being fought on American soil. We, the 'war hungry' Americans, only commit to actionable defense of foreign states whose sovereignty is threatened by whatever forces are objectively creating a threat. We do so because we stand on the principle that it is better to stand up for the weak than it is to kowtow to dictators or totalitarian states. Now, we do this in a manner that is selective because geopolitics isn't a black and white decision matrix, and we have to pick battles that that we not only think we can win, but that won't serve to exacerbate the problems of totalitarianism and despotic rule.

It is the President who declares war... one guy for better or worse.

No, in the United States, Congress declares war (a bunch of guys).

Since the War Powers Act, it's basically been the president who makes war. Congressional declarations are a formality. Many of the events that we think of as wars are "military actions"-- Korean "War", Vietnam "War", First Iraq "war", second Iraq "war", Afghanistan "war", Kosovo, Libya, etc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_Unit...

Not without the blessing of congress. Not officially, at least.

> Don't you guys ask yourself how come you are always at war? Why you have "generations of veterans", even though you have by far the most powerful military force to ever have existed?

We have the most powerful military ever because we've decided to take in the role of global hegemon. Now maybe that's a bad idea--but it's much bigger than just getting into specific wars that may or may not be particularly necessary. We live in a world order built on the American military maintaining the status quo.

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