Comment by kjksf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kjksf | Hacker News Reader

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Since 1947 US has been involved in 5 major wars (Korea, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Afganistan, Iraq).

Which begs the question: do you think it's more "moral" to wage wars and lie to public that you're in the business of defense OR say things that are truthful?

Spending trillion+ dollars on military is about the only thing that both political party agree on. Obama bombed more countries that most presidents.

Since we're talking about adults thinking like children: your simplistic ideas about what military should be have no effect on what it is.

If Iran had the firepower superiority over Israel and U.S. they would level both countries. This is no me saying. "Death to America" is a literal quote from now-dead ayatollah.

When you actually listen why they renamed DoD to DoW it's way more nuanced that you apparently believe.

One of the reasons is that political correctness is destructive in military. If you're actually at war, winning should be objective not PR optics.

And it seems to be working. See disaster of Afghanistan withdrawal compared to astonishing success of snatching Maduro and destroying Iran's capability to wage future wars.

Surely it's a bit early to declare "astonishing success of ... destroying Iran's capability to wage future wars".

As far as I can see, the US has managed to replace an older Ayatollah Khomeini with a younger Ayatollah Khomeini with even more reasons to seek vengeance against the US and obtain nuclear weapons.

> If you're actually at war, winning should be objective not PR optics.

Which of course is why a former TV host is clearly the most qualified person to be Secretary of Defense, sorry War.

There is so much to reply to here. I feel like I’m being Gish Galloped.

You didn’t actually justify most of what you said and when you did the reasoning seems circular. Most of what you say just has the premise that what’s being done now is good and necessary, and that’s not something I agree with.

I did listen to the justifications for the ‘rename’ (Congress named the department and has not actually changed the name - but that’s a digression…), and disagree with much of the reasoning.

I think it would be ‘more moral’ to have a Department of Defense that operates and has the goals I described. I neither think it’s ‘moral’ to strive for war nor to lie to the public about it.

I agree the military should be well funded.

You invoke Obama, I can’t tell if you agree with what he did or not, and it’s anyway not relevant to what we’re discussing.

Since we're talking about adults thinking like children: your simplistic ideas about what military should be have no effect on what it is.

This sounds deep but is actually nonsense. Our society absolutely gets to choose everything about what our military is and how it’s used. Indeed, you even seem to be arguing that it isn’t (wasn’t) what you think it should be!

Iran and our response to it is a different thing than I was discussing (the name of the department, remember), but I think it would be both ‘more moral’ and probably more effective to actually think and plan deeply than whatever this is. The current administration seems to be all tactics, no strategy.

And I find it ironic that you list a bunch of conflicts that have had, at best, mixed results, then just assert that what’s currently underway, which seems to have less long term planning behind it than any of those, is just obviously going to have a great outcome.

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