Fred Reed muses upon a familiar pattern:
Recently I saw an interview with General McChrystal, head butcher of the the Pentagon’s Democracy Implantation Force in Afghanistan. The General was explaining our ongoing victory. Yes, victory. We were making progress. It was only a matter of time. He could see the light at the end of the tunnel. He didn’t explain what were doing in a tunnel in the first place….
What McMoreland doesn’t get is that people just don’t like being invaded. Yes, yes, it’s for their own good. We, of course, will determine what constitutes their own good. Such is the ingratitude of these people, and their lack of respect for borders, that we find ourselves forced to expand the war into Cambod—Pakistan, I meant. Pakistan. And so the Predators fly, Predating, killing the wrong people because that’s what there are more of. That doing this might produce animosity is irrelevant to soldiers. The Mision is sacred. Our intentions are good.
The consequences of not understanding what you are doing can be consequential.
It is truly remarkable how most self-styled conservatives resolutely refuse to recall the lessons of military history. The failing occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq will hardly mark the first time that a once-wealthy, but still-powerful society in decline has bankrupted itself while haplessly engaging in pointless military overstretch.
I find myself wondering how many pro-occupation “conservatives” have lost their jobs yet? And I wonder how many of them will still believe in the absolute priority of occupying third-world countries on the other side of the planet once they find themselves out on the street and collecting unemployment?