The Case for War [btw war is the most inefficient use of energy there is]

In short, we’re committed to these two conflicts for a good while yet, and there is nothing like an etched-in-stone plan for concluding them. I can easily imagine a scenario in which Afghanistan and Iraq both heat up and the U.S., caught in an extended economic disaster at home, undermines its fragile recovery efforts in the same way that societies have undermined themselves since the dawn of time — with endless warfare.

We’ve already paid a fearful price for these wars. In addition to the many thousands of service members who have been killed or suffered obvious disabling injuries, a study by the RAND Corporation found that some 300,000 are currently suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, and that 320,000 have most likely experienced a traumatic brain injury.

NVDL: I remember when Bush first decided to hold a war (yes, like having a fancy dress party, just with guns instead of alcohol) I wondered: they must have figured that the cost of the war is likley to be less than the oil they'll get for policing Iraq. And I remember thinking then that I thought they could well be mistaken in their arithmetic...and since I'm just me...I wonder how so-called experts could have come up with such a lousy plan to, in effect, bankrupt America rather than improve its prospects. Still, the oil game is not over yet, and Iran is yet to play its chess pieces, and oil prices are set to rebound with a vengeance...but it seems clear the American economy is wrecked nevertheless.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Suicides among soldiers rose in 2008 for the fourth consecutive year, largely because of the stress of combat deployments. It’s believed that 128 soldiers took their own lives last year. Much of the country can work itself up to a high pitch of outrage because a banker or an automobile executive flies on a private jet. But we’ll send young men and women by the thousands off to repeated excursions through the hell of combat — three tours, four tours or more — without raising so much as a peep of protest. Lyndon Johnson, despite a booming economy, lost his Great Society to the Vietnam War. He knew what he was risking. He would later tell Doris Kearns Goodwin, “If I left the woman I really loved — the Great Society — in order to get involved with that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home. All my programs... All my dreams...”