The painful truth about why America needs a military

www.americanthinker.com

In addition to my other sources, I force myself to read CNN, The Intercept, and other left-wing “news” sources daily. Upon reading CNN this morning, the top of the fold story was “Third US Service Member Killed…” I understand that it’s news and the headline is true. At the same time, I also realize that given America’s predisposition towards risk avoidance and a fear of forever wars, this headline feeds directly into our enemies’ cognitive strategy to undermine the will of the American people to defend essential principles and national interests.

The debate that never seems to get aired is the painful subject of what a military is for and its proper use in pursuit of our legitimate goals and requirements. Without that debate, all war news is basically negative propaganda, even if true from a logical perspective.

The painful truth is that people die in wars, and without any perspective, the losses feel unnecessary and even worse: Why do we send our sons and daughters to die in vain? That’s the whole thesis behind phrases like “forever wars”; they are purposely designed to be emotionally evocative and to restrain the U.S. from pursuing its legitimate international aims.

If you told me the phrase was dreamed up by some psyops group in Iran or Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Here’s the point, ladies and gentlemen: The DSA has called for the closure of the Department of War. Examine that statement to determine whether it advances their messaging. From the DSA’s standpoint, they believe there are enough people who feel like them, that the messaging is legitimate and helps them coalesce a group of like-minded Americans who don’t like our country today and want it completely reimagined, as crazy as that might seem to some of us.

Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have made tens of millions of our citizens hold a false belief that violence solves nothing and America can’t be successful on the battlefield. Think I’m wrong?

Take demonized Israel for a moment as an example of what we are beginning to see here. Israel’s losses from the October 7th massacre were 1,139 dead and approximately 4,000 wounded. Israel is a country of about 10 million people. In comparison, if this had happened here at home, we would have sustained over 150,000 dead or wounded. What would we have done to whoever committed that atrocity?

Hamas is still in control of Gaza for one reason: Israel didn’t wipe out Gaza, even though it could have done so. Of the approximate 175,000 killed or injured as reported, an unknown number were combatants. Gaza contains over 2 million people. The casualty rate was so high because Hamas wanted as many civilians killed or injured as possible to cause exactly the kind of world condemnation against Israel that it has.

Would we have been surgical, or would we have wiped out whoever killed or maimed our citizens?

This leads us back to what’s happening in Iran and how Iran believes it can win by using the same strategy as Hamas did in Gaza.

Our enemy has found our soft underbelly and is exploiting it successfully. Every American can rightfully mourn the loss of even one of our soldiers. But why have a military if we are no longer willing to use it to support our national objectives?

We must have a debate on exactly what our national objectives are. Unfortunately, too many Americans are unschooled or simply uninterested in geopolitics, the importance of capitalism, individualism, and America’s essential role in stabilizing the world and protecting our liberties, which were never free in the first place.

If we don’t find a new mindset very soon, America will face an endless number of challengers who think the champ is ripe for the taking.

God Bless America.