Want To Know What I Think?

I think the United States is a bloated military-industrial complex with a glaring inability to learn from its mistakes.

The lesson should have begun during the Viet Nam war. In the 1950's we had less than 800 troops in that country. By 1962 we had 9,000. At the height of our involvement we had 500,000 troops involved.

We lost that war. The United States doesn't lose wars. We win. We lost the Viet Nam war.

We lost because we had no idea how to fight that enemy. It was an entirely different enemy, an entirely different approach and we could not figure out how to adapt. 58,000 Americans died because of our stubborn stupidity.

Fast forward to Paris, France. Last night.

Cowardly terrorism once again sacrifices innocent lives. And people are talking about escalating our efforts against isis.

Are you kidding me?

We have continued to prove that we cannot adapt. In Iraq, in Afghanistan, against al-qaeda, against isis.

We continue to sacrifice thousands of American lives for no particular reason. Which suggests, among other things, a callous disregard on the part of our government and our military, for the lives of our troops.

That is criminal and disgusting. And immoral.

It has been forty years since we left Viet Nam and we still cannot figure out how to effectively fight these enemies.

Are we that goddamn stupid?

Insane might be the better word. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

We are like a heavy weight boxer going up against a feather weight and expecting that one punch to the head will win the fight. Except we cannot deliver that punch.

The feather weight dances around us delivering body blows, ducking, taunting us, wearing us down until we fall to the canvas. And we never knew what hit us.

Je suis Paris. That was painted on walls last night in France and it is true.

We are all Paris. We are all September 11.

Everyone who is not a terrorist and is not sympathetic to their cause is in this together.

We are all vulnerable. We are all afraid.

We are all dependent on our government to protect us intelligently. To make good decisions on how and when to deploy American lives.

I have zero confidence that we can prevent a Paris-like attack in this country. With all our military "intelligence", with all our military might, we cannot adequately protect the citizens of this country.

Because we still do not know how to fight these people. al-qaeda; isis.

We should not commit one more American life to this war until we figure it out.