Comment by docdeek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by docdeek | Hacker News Reader

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> Hegseth is telling top brass to prepare for war...

Hegseth said, "To ensure peace, we must prepare for war. From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is war fighting. Preparing for war and preparing to win."

Clausewitz said the same thing, and the Romans were saying "Si vis pacem, para bellum" about 2500 years ago. Is what Hegseth saying so different to JFK saying, "'Pursue peace,' the Bible tells us, and we shall pursue it with every effort and every energy that we possess. But it is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war."? Or so very different to Gerald Ford saying, "America's first goal is and always will be peace with honor. America must remain first in keeping peace in the world. We can remain first in peace only if we are never second in defense."?

Whatever the criticisms of the current US administration, someone expressing the idea that securing peace means preparing for war doesn't seem all that remarkable.

> Clausewitz

You do know what eventually happened to Prussia? It was erased from existence...

Long-term it didn't work out that well for the Romans either.

>Long-term it didn't work out that well for the Romans either

deeply unserious thing to say about history.

They spent a significant proportion of the 600 years between ~100BC and 500 AD fighting pointless and often very brutal civil wars.

~3/4ths or all Roman emperors died by various violent means. The Romans spent unsustainable amounts of money (resulting in veryhigh levels of taxation) to fund a massive army often the main purpose of which was fighting other Romans. Until it was too late... by the end not that many actual Romans were even willing to fight and die to save the empire.

Sure it's spectacular that they not only managed to survive but often even thrive despite that, still. Not sure if its the best example to follow.

600 years is long term. Add in the Republic and Monarchy years and the Romans were extremely long lived.

You really love cherry picking don't you?

The difference is Hegseth is an uncouth, unqualified stooge who renamed the Department of Defence to the Department of War. And if you're going to sit here and try to justify war when they are adversarial to our allies and claiming we have "enemies within" in reference to a nonexistent radical left, then it is very different. The war in this context matters, or have we lost nuance?

I don't agree with JFK's continuation of war in Vietnam, so fuck him, too. It also seems like you're twisting yourself a bit to equate Gerald Ford's sentiment, but hey, that's just my opinion, man.

So, the Democrats would be different as it relates to the current wars? Democratic Party cheered on the Ukraine war. Democratic Party voted for Iraq along with Republicans after 911. I think a single Democrat (who later voted for the Ukraine war ironically) voted against it. Both parties are devout backers of the current Middle East scheme. When it comes to war, the parties are practically indistinguishable.

If you're still thinking both sides are the same, then maybe the conversation isn't worth it. I think status quo Democrats are a real problem that, unfortunately, helped get us here. That said, I'm not going to have the both sides conversation for the millionth time because I cannot help but think you are arguing in bad faith.

I'll say it again. Context matters. They are adversarial to our allies and the "enemy within" is in reference to a nonexistent radical left.

Edit: also, "voted for the Ukraine war"? Excuse me? Do you think Russia should go unchecked? After WW2, Europe more or less, conceded to the American hegemony and military power in exchange for trade overreach. For better or for worse, Europe's success is important to American success and vice versa. Russia knows this and considers Ukraine a check on western power.

You have zero clue about my faith. The days of the peaceful anti-war Democratic party are gone, buddy. The sooner that the Democrats realize it and start to reverse course to where they once were, the sooner the Democratic Party can return to being a viable alternative to the Republican Party, particularly as it relates to foreign policy and war decisions.

> peaceful anti-war Democratic party are gone, buddy

Do tell when this party has ever existed, besides your imagination? Few years during Carter's admin maybe...

Can you name any conflict since (and including) the Mexican–American War that the Democrats opposed? (besides the Civil War of course).

Go further back. Try Nixon's administration.

Further back than the 1840s?

Nixon was actually the anti-war candidate? That didn't quite workout that well but that's what he ran on...

Vietnam mostly started under Kennedy, Johnson massively escalated it and Humphrey still supported continuing it.

Then you had somebody like Eisenhower who wanted who both opposed prolonging Korea and was generally reticent about involving US in the Indochina War (not that he didn't misjudge the situation anyway)

Maybe a small time period during the hippie era near the end of the Vietnam war?

My main point is that I get tired of people from both sides of the aisle democrat/republican making comments about how the other side does or doesn’t do stuff that their own party does as well? It results in virtually no decent discussion and everybody pointing at each other, even though they basically want the same things. It is very cultish and unproductive.

What? The Democrats did not start the Ukraine war, nor is the US even an active participant in that war (regardless of Russian propaganda).

Whose weapons are Ukraine using? Who trained Ukraine how to use these weapons? Where did Ukraine get the majority of the money that it’s using to blow up buildings in Russia and kill Russian soldiers? Where is the intelligence that Ukraine uses to determine its targets come from? Do you seriously think Ukraine has satellites in space monitoring?

The answer to every one of those questions is the United States.

>Democrats would be different as it relates to the current wars?

Threateninv a civil war isn't a partisan issue. I believe we need to go all the way back to Andrew Jackson to think about a time where a president is openly threatening it's own US cities. The Civil War under Lincoln was provoked first under the confederate states. I legitimately can't think of anything more recent than that, no matter the alignment.

We can talk about warmongering, but you just don't threaten your own people. At least not until they threaten the government. Because provoking and. attacking the people you lead is just profoundly stupid. There's no rebellion to quell, no land to annex. It's just a man pretending to be a dictator in the stupidest way possible.

What does this have to do with which party has more of a proclivity to go to war? Why does everything have to devolve back to Trump?

By the way, I think Trump‘s stupid comment about training the troops in cities was absolutely stupid and deserves to be called out. However, you would be foolish to think that other leaders prior to him haven’t thought similar thoughts, but just haven’t said it out loud.

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