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> the president needs to do what is necessary to win a war if one happens Not all wars can or should be won. For example, the war on drugs cannot be won, just
by qznc 10y ago
> the president needs to do what is necessary to win a war if one happens
Not all wars can or should be won. For example, the war on drugs cannot be won, just like the war on alcohol was a mistake.
Sometimes, the greatest things a leader / president can do, is to acknowledge that he was (we were) wrong. However, pride prevents that. Once you decided to enter a war, you are entirely focused on winning it.
- ptaipale 10y agoThe war on drugs is not a war that soldiers fight. It's a figure of speech. The war on terror is so-so.
- qznc 10y ago> The war on drugs is not a war that soldiers fight Debatable. The police men / DEA involved probably feel like soldiers sometimes. The drug lords and governments in south america certainly have soldiers involved.
- eponeponepon 10y agoThey're being trained to think of themselves as soldiers. This will inevitably lead to them being soldiers, and that eventually ends in bog-standard straightforward war, indistinguishable from any waged by "real" soldiers.
- tracker1 10y agoMost soldiers throughout history were not career soldiers or warriors. Most are people brought into the conflict without any intent to be a soldier before whatever brought them in.
- lostboys67 10y agopaintball weekend warriors probably think that to but real soldiers consider them "walts"
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- humanrebar 10y ago> The war on drugs is not a war that soldiers fight. There are a lot of decapitations and mass graves for something that isn't a war. If the people fighting aren't soldiers, what are they?
- ptaipale 10y agoCriminals. (By the way, soldiers generally don't decapitate enemies these days; doing so is a war crime.)
- humanrebar 10y agoFair point. Though calling those actions war crimes strengthens the point that there is actually a drug war going on.
- ptaipale 10y agoWhen drug lords decapitate people, I don't call it a war crime. Just crime. If soldiers wage war and then decapitate people (like Daesh does) then that's a war crime.
- natermer 10y agoCarrying out and enforcing immoral laws makes you as much of a criminal as anybody. The police state doesn't carry out showy public executions like the cartels do, but they have ruined many people's lives for no good reason and they have put plenty of otherwise innocent people in a grave. And guess what? The American people pay for both sides. They pay for the cartels and they pay for the police state. If the war on drugs never existed there wouldn't be any cartels in the first place. It's pure idiocy compounded with greed and profiteering on other people's misery. You can't have the one of the highest percentage of the population in prison and call yourself a free country. It's bold faced contradiction. The USA beats out Turkmenistan FFS.
- pjc50 10y agoIt certainly is in Mexico.
- twblalock 10y ago> Not all wars can or should be won. For example, the war on drugs cannot be won, just like the war on alcohol was a mistake. I'm talking about real wars, not metaphorical wars.
- qznc 10y agoYeah, the choice of war was not optimal. I'm looking for a war, which is mostly uncontroversial (on HN). Maybe Vietnam? The crusades?
- joslin01 10y agoVietnam is a great example that proves original OP right, actually. We should have never been in that war. It was a main driving force in the anti-war attitude of the 60s and 70s.
- arethuza 10y agoUncontroversial and Vietnam (or indeed the Crusades) aren't words that you see together very often!