At the end of the day, war is how many L's can I force feed my opponent until they cry uncle. That's called a W. Everyone here realizes this as well as how grossly oversimplified that distillation is. Everyone also knows that war means people are maimed and killed but I'm not gonna turn every post I make in this thread into a memoriam for the dead either.
Not just grossly oversimplified, it's meaningless. Taliban never cried "uncle", they always had a longer view of the timeline and knew where their advantages lay, but you were promoting that as some big win for the US military with smileys and everything. North Korea never cried uncle either but no one wanted to bring that up as a United States loss, same for the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia or the Communist government in Laos or Somalia or Syria or any number other of failed invasions and incursions.
Not to mention, again, that any evaulation of a war that is solely based on military actions without understanding of how the actual on-the-ground reality is affected and how many people die or have their lives changed and how it impacts the political situation going forward is a massive distraction. It's tunnel-visioned shyt like that that had us running into Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place without regard for the consequences (and MANY such actions before that).
And no one asked you to turn every post into a memoriam for the dead, but yeah, a lot of your posts are way over the top in terms of the "ra ra America!" shyt. And you're kidding yourself if you don't think those attitudes towards war aren't part of the reason why it's so easy for Americans to disasociate themselves from the consequences of their bombing campaigns, drone wars, arms deals with damn near every nation on Earth, invasions at the drop of a hate, and so on. It's tough as hell to actually draw people's attention to the staggering human cost when 90% of the attention is focused on, "BUT HOLY shyt THIS IS SO COOL DID YOU SEE THAT THING BLOW UP!" as if real people with families and lives didn't get torn to pieces when it happened.
It's not just that "Oh, someone chose to focus on a different opinion". It's that all the militaristic focus on how cool winning military engagements is makes it
actively more difficult for those of us who actually want to work to end war or at least make it less common. Someone who gets off on the USA demonstrating its incredible firepower is going to have a conflict of interest with the USA pulling back from engaging in international violence. Someone who finds glee in ultramodern military power is going to catch feelings when we talk about reducing the defense budget. Maybe that's not actually you but it's people who see you online.
So far as the whole "Ra Ra America" shyt goes, I am not a "My country right or wrong" ass hole. When the U.S. fukks up at home or abroad I am the first to call it out because I actually care about the nation I was born in and call home. But when the U.S. steps up to the plate to do some good, you're goddamn right I'm gonna give em a public round of applause. The U.S. has so much weight to throw around that it's stupid and is often misused. Seeing it get behind what I believe is a noble cause is dope....
What exactly are you mad about again?
Oh, and Crimea by Halloween.
It's not about "my country right or wrong", it's about glorifying killing and destruction for its own sake because it's so fun to watch shyt blow up and see some politician you don't like take an L (even though it is NEVER that politician who is actually the one getting killed, rarely even his family and loved ones) or have some online prediction you made come true.
The more the energy goes in that direction, the harder it is to get people behind solutions that would actually result in less suffering. If it came down to a decision between 20,000 more Crimean deaths or just allowing Russia to retain Crimea in order to end the war, which would you root for? What if the vast majority of Crimeans would rather the war ended, would that matter? Would you push for the option that might result in 20,000 more deaths because the L you were hoping for Putin hadn't yet metastized to the degree you hoped?
And maybe you're a really mature guy and can parse those things just fine....but the energy you and others put out here still is taken in by a lot of others who aren't nearly as mature and those masses do impact US policy in the end. I mean the "ra ra America!" propaganda still has some 80-90% of Americans supporting the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings a good 77 years later even though that was one of the single most disgusting acts of terror against a civilian population in the history of war and had been opposed by virtually every one of our major military leaders because it was completely immaterial to winning the war.
But there is literally no limit to the extent of death and evil acts that can be supported by a nation's people when "ra ra military!" and nationalism are combined. Sadly we've seen that over and over again.
Brush it off and then drop 20 billion in 8 months in a proxy war against Russia in Eastern Europe...
The U.S. war machine is on
24/7/365. For good or bad, it moves like no other military has ever been able to now or ever. Seeing Russian forces ape Western tactics is like watching kids play dress up. It's fukking so stupid whenever I hear "Russia ain't even really flexing like that yet."
My guy, If the U.S. really really says "I had do it to 'em" @Unknown Poster and well, does it to 'em... it'll be a sight to behold.
Point out any falsehoods in that statement if you can. It's all facts, my guy.
