This country is so screwed.

Maybe if we’d left Germany and the allies to fight to a draw in WW1, they’d have come up with something like the peace of Westphalia, instead of the grotesquely unfair treaty of Versailles which provoked German anger and helped kill the German economy , setting up angry and desperate people all too willing to follow a demagogue. – pendell2 on January 28, 2013 at 11:17 AM

World War I was a stupid, pointless war fought mainly between three first cousins, King George V of Great Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Czar Nicholas II of Germany. It should never have been fought in the first place. If the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria had not been assassinated by the Muslim Gavrilo Pincip in 1914, the entire 20th Century would have been very, very different.

while maybe the army will be a little less efficient, it wont matter much because soon enough, all the wars will be done with drones.

nathor on January 28, 2013 at 6:19 AM

Drones can’t hold land. The simple reason why airplanes aren’t the only combat troops in existence counters that argument.

No I can’t outfight a jet with a rifle; but that doesn’t seem to have ended the war in Afghanistan. If you can’t hold the land you eventually have to leave.

I won’t read newspapers or watch network news, because their Leftist agenda is too prevalent and unacceptable to me.

I homeschooled my children because the teacher’s unions have brought mockery of all things decent into education, teaching lies as truth, and rejecting historical facts.

Moves like this, or like making the military into an LGBT petri dish, are less about progressiveness, and more about “souring the milk”, to borrow a phrase, for all those with traditional values.

Divide and conquer is the order of the day. This isn’t political, though the useful idiots think it is. This is Good vs Evil, and a time for reckoning is at hand.

As to the reasoning behind their maneuvering…as well as the end game at which they’d like to arrive…well, I’m sure you all can work that out on your own.

What can’t be done by drones will be outsourced to locals. France in Mali, or Libyan rebels in Libya, or Syrian rebels in Syria, or Ethiopian troops in Somalia.

Not only will this be the case for this administration, it will hamstring the ability of future administrations to, say, invade Afghanistan in response to a terrorist attack. It will force us, for now and for future generations, to intervene overseas only with air power, sea power, and limited SOF forces.

So this is likely the beginning of the end for America in the Wilsonian/FDR interventionist mode. It means a return to isolationism. Ironically, it is being brought about by the same “progressives” who brought us WW1 and WW2 in the first place.

I’m sort of conflicted. Because I’m not convinced that stepping away from the intent of the Founding Fathers to wage global war was a great idea in the first place. Yes, we saved the world from Hitler. But I suspect that if Wilson hadn’t bungled us into WW1 in the first place, Hitler would never have come to power in the first place!

Maybe if we’d left Germany and the allies to fight to a draw in WW1, they’d have come up with something like the peace of Westphalia, instead of the grotesquely unfair treaty of Versailles which provoked German anger and helped kill the German economy , setting up angry and desperate people all too willing to follow a demagogue.

The world existed long before Americans existed to save it from itself. And watching the Arab Spring, I’m not convinced the world needs any more “help” from us and our bungling State department.

So I’m conflicted. If I say Obama is wrong now, I have to say that Wilson was right. If I say that Wilson was wrong then, Obama must be right now.

Now *I* would prefer an America able to defend itself that was “friend of liberty everywhere, but guardian only of its own”. But that doesn’t seem to be on the menu, regrettably.

Respectfully,

Brian P.