War is the part of the human condition that inflicts the most pain on mankind. The United States has dealt with its fair share of war, and in the past, many of America's wars have been justifiable on the grounds of self-defense, but today that has changed. America's wars in the modern era don't benefit the American nation and consume too many lives and resources.
The war on Terror has become America's longest war and seems to be a never ending conflict with few positive outcomes. 9/11 will be a day that is forever remembered not just as a day where two thousand innocent Americans lost their lives at the hands of slaughterous terrorists, but also as the day that the American government started their futile and misguided attempt at beating the terrorists at their own game. The invasion of Afghanistan to rid it of Al Qaeda's rule was a reasonable act, but invaded Iraq, a neutral country, on trumped up charges of holding weapons of mass destruction was a mistake of the worst kind. The excursion into Iraq has cost America over 4,800 lives. While this might seem like a relatively small number in the face of the vast casualties our country has experienced in past conflicts, consider that 4,800 lives were not just lost. 4,800 families were bereft of their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and fathers and sons. Now what do we have to show for it? Nothing at all, besides trillions of dollars in debt and thousands of more young men and women who suffered from mental and physical pain due to the conflict.
At one point, communism was considered the greatest threat to democracy and freedom worldwide; America combatted the Soviet Union's ideology in wars at all corners of the globe, none of which benefitted the citizenry of either nation. For instance, take the Vietnam War, a highly controversial affair in which fifty-five thousand Americans lost their lives. Supposedly our government wanted Vietnam to be a democratic and free nation, yet the American government installed the corrupt despot Ngo Dinh Diem under the guise of free elections, which were, in all actuality, rigged.
