Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.
Oh, sure, we have another world war coming, and another great depression, but where are the leaders this time?
'Bush v. Gore' gave us a president who lost the popular vote, eventually appointed two more justices, and led us into a war of choice while failing to regulate a financial system dependent on toxic mortgage-backed derivatives.
I was a privileged observer to be there when Celine Dion opened at Caesars Palace and then the second Gulf War started. It was an odd thing to see the impact both events had on Vegas. The place was riding high after Celine, but overnight, once war was declared, it was deserted.
My father is American and deserted the Vietnam War.
I have many times asked myself whether there can be more potent advocates of peace upon earth through the years to come than this massed multitude of silent witnesses to the desolation of war.
In this first testing ground of the atomic bomb I have seen the most terrible and frightening desolation in four years of war. It makes a blitzed Pacific island seem like an Eden. The damage is far greater than photographs can show.
ISIS despises the Russian government for its support of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and so it's no surprise that ISIS began targeting Russia in 2015, around the same time that Russia first intervened in the Syrian civil war.
When I volunteered for the draft as a 20-year-old, mischievous guy at the height of the Vietnam War, most thought I was destined to pass from this earth early!
The First World War was a war devoid of any virtue. It arose from the quagmire of European tribalism: a complex interplay of nation-state destinies overlaid by notions of cultural superiority peppered with racism.
On the justification for the war, it wasn't related to finding any particular weapon of mass destruction.
The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.
I have known war as few men now living know it. It's very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.
Any war or conflict you enter where you are likely to lose more Americans and expend more treasure is something worthy of very detailed debate. There ought to be a lot of skepticism. There ought to be a lot of discussion.
It is important to recognize the differences between the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism. The treatment of those detained at Abu Ghraib is governed by the Geneva Conventions, which have been signed by both the U.S. and Iraq.
The goal is to deter war, and this can only be done with a strong, modern, and ready military that has overmatch in all domains.
The surest way to deter adversary aggression is to fully prepare for war.
If few can stand a long war without deterioration of soul, none can stand a long peace.
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
We defended our allies in Europe for 40 years during the worst days of the Cold War - very threatening days of the Cold War - and nothing happened. So deterrence does work.
