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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

The thing that amazes me is how frequently the US engages in foreign wars, when the vast majority of the US population, even those who vote, do not want war.

There was a decent (but one I still disagree with) argument made once for bringing back the draft, as a way to make the actual bloody practical cost of perpetual war felt by the average person, perhaps in the hopes that they would become less frequent. Slavery is slavery though and it's only a thought experiment.

Say no to war, and say it loudly. Don't work for or with people who support or supply wars.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

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Invading Afghanistan was very popular, to the point that I kinda shut up about it at the time because it just made people mad (at me), and even being against Iraq sure didn't feel like being in the majority—or even close to it—at the time.

The Afghanistan war was very popular. OBL had coordinated the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Almost every American citizen was out for blood. The Taliban was hosting him and weren't going to give him up easily. So we went through them to get him (even though we didn't).

The aftermath is where the popularity dwindled. Wars are easy, occupations are hard. And after dismantling the Afghanistan Taliban regime we thought we could be rebuild a better Afghanistan built on western standards. This was never going to happen.

Iraq was also popular. 80% of Republicans supported the incursion wholeheartedly. Slightly over 50% of Democrats supported the incursion, if WMDs could be found. Once Americans realized WMDs weren't going to be found support for the war in Iraq dropped stupendously. But support for the occupation was relatively high (for a while) because most Americans realized you break something you have to fix it.

For most Americans, war is hugely popular. But just the 1-2 months of actually fighting. The decades long nation building is what generals try and talk politicians out of.

> Almost every American citizen was out for blood.

That's simply not true; that was the narrative that was pushed. The military is adept at both manufacturing consent, as well as making anyone that does not consent feel as if they are in a minority.

The vast majority are opposed to war, even after attacks.

"90% of Americans approve of the United States taking such military action, while just 5% are opposed, and another 5% are unsure." [0]

[0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/4966/public-overwhelmingly-back...

I was more than fine with the steps taken in Afghanistan after 9/11. Iraq, not so much.

How quickly a generation forgets the horrors of 9/11.

The real horror of 9/11 was not the few thousand deaths in the western hemisphere, but the few hundred thousand unnecessary ones executed in retaliation in the eastern hemisphere (none of which reduces the likelihood of a recurrence).

All we learned from the whole thing is that if you want to attack the USA, terrorism is the most effective way. A tiny investment will cause the entity to respond by working hard to abandon its own principles destroying itself, destroying thousands of others, and wasting unfathomable amounts of money.

This is as true now as ever.

> The real horror of 9/11 was not the few thousand deaths in the western hemisphere, but the few hundred thousand unnecessary ones executed in retaliation in the eastern hemisphere (none of which reduces the likelihood of a recurrence).

Not to mention the tens of thousands of illegally detained, usually on fake or wrong pretenses, and the many of them tortured. Every one of them, and everyone that knows them, has every reason to hate the guts of everything remotely American.

No offense, but 9/11 is nothing compared to 50 thousands Afghan innocent civilians killed by US in response.

(Edit: please observe all the downvotes, implicitly claiming that lives of Americans are somehow more valuable.)

Maybe they are downvoting you because you're comparing the death of people killed by terrorist and the ones that died as collateral damage in a war.

Both are tragedies but both are different.

No, they aren’t - the difference is all about formalities; from the moral standpoint they are precisely the same. It doesn’t matter if you go killing innocent people because of religion, political interests, race, or money.

That's where you're wrong. The US never went to kill civilians, the terrorists did.

There are always innocent casualties in war. The US knew that full well, and decided to go anyway. They went there to kill terrorists and civilians.

If that's true (which I doubt), the US military is fantastically bad at their job.

Low estimates of the cost of the Iraq war put it at 185k dead iraqi civilians.

I believe that it is much more likely that the US military simply doesn't care much about civilian deaths incurred whilst it seeks useless vengeance. This satisfies Occam's Razor, too.

> even those who vote, do not want war.

Didnt Americans want some kind of war after 9/11

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