33 Comments

War in an area may end, but war in general never seems to end. Even with Reagan, we went to war in Grenada, though he took credit for ending the Cold War (credit was really due to the USSR).

It was Eisenhower who pointed out the Military-Industrial Complex. Alas, the money and weapons of war. A greedy behemoth that must be fed.

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Wars with our real enemies are fought through proxy nations now. Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine... this is so that oligarchs can continue to remain in power while feeding the machine. If the U.S. ever went to war directly with Iran, China or Russia, it would signal a battle of a different kind and it would be the end to end all ends.

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How oh How do I UNSUBSCRIBE TO YOUR “Understandably.com” newsletter/blog. You offer no option at the bottom of your writing to UNSUBSCRIBE…only offer me to pay for a subscription.

I want to unsubscribe. If I ever did want to pay for your opinions, but had no way to unsubscribe, well I would think this is an undesirable publication.

Please unsubscribe me from all further comments from “Understandably by Bill Murphy, Jr.

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Hoarding workers will amount to another price inflation binge for consumers. All those raises, benefits, perks and incentives used to retain employees will be paid for by raising prices, not cutting into profits and big wig bonuses.

The psychological marketing tool of "unboxing" is rather silly. You still get the same product no matter how religious the opening becomes. It's nothing more than another form of control over the mindless consumer.

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I would call it the “passive aggressive” war! War is never a good thing and we must never fight in the same manner if we were to directly engage in war again.

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Haven't read or heard from encyclopedias in like 100 years. Good for you...hail Gorby.

It couldn't and most likely wouldn't have ended without both of them.

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It ended with a disaster withdrawal from Afghanistan that left Americans behind, left extremely expensive military equipment and intelligence behind, left that country in turmoil, and emboldened the enemy we went over there to defeat.

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March 20 1991

I was a USAF Lieutenant adjusting to the "end" of Desert Storm.

March 20, 2003

I was a civilian running a small company, having just gotten profitable and hired my replacement.

Fake intel led to fake ending - there are probably still no WMD in Iraq.

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Brilliance!! Thanks for sharing

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My guy and I were attempting to create a personal battle plan after his recent diagnosis with a service connected disease. So many unknowns. He was a retired naval officer. Before autumn was official, he’d retire early from a civilian career. The world stage suddenly took a backseat. As a naval reservist a decade earlier, he’d called Bupers and volunteered for the impending Gulf War, announcing he was no. 6 on list to do so. Our youngest was in 2nd grade. No words - except I’d throw one heck of a going away party if he were recalled to active duty. Peel the calendar back five decades, and he was a young aviator ship-bound for Vietnam. In many ways, the veterans of WWII were his blueprint to try to leave the world a better place. Today’s focus is Ukraine and increasing world tensions. How will any of this end? Because the world consists of imperfect human beings, we will hope for peace and understanding, then turn and face a much more complicated reality.

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Colin Powell in one of his early books I read pre 9/11 stated a lesson he learned as a lieutenant in Vietnam, was to have an exit strategy before going to war. Decades later he continued to be a good soldier, as Secretary of Defense, and follow orders from his superiors, facilitating entering 2 wars that broke his earlier lesson of no clear exit strategy. I respect Powell, but have mixed feelings about his legacy.

His superior, President Bush Jr., lied to us about WMD’s and starting the Iran war. He also was wrong/lied to us about “Mission Accomplished”, that the war in Iran, was over. I think that twisting (or making up) the facts to justify a war (Iran) may be a war crime. I blame the guy who has a ‘buck stops here’ label.

Most wars are born in the ending of the prior war. I suspect your observation that Afghanistan war is not over is correct. Our government predicts that Isis in Afghanistan will be able to strike abroad in 6 months time.

The book “Charlie Wilson’s War” was about the US fighting by proxy, the USSR in Afghanistan. It took the Russians a long time to realize they didn’t have an exit strategy. The book cautioned against abandoning our anti USSR allies. This suggested that our abandonment and lack of fulfilling our promises to the Afghan people may have lead to the rise of Isis and contributed to 9/11. On the other hand maybe we wouldn’t have been able to build a nation back then either.

Afghanistan can not be compared to the war in Ukraine. They had a functioning county before the Russian Invasion.

Don’t ignore history at the risk of it repeating itself. I suspect the majority of your readers agree with the ignore history part.

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Endings are overly hyped or at least over-rated concepts when it comes to things matter on a grand level. Children's stories are known for having the happily ever after ending; but does that child like expectation carry over into a reality that it doesn't fit?

Serving through the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, I often wondered if we (as a nation/or even better as a coalition of nations) would stay long enough to make the sacrifices really worth it. I also thought about the duality that the longer we stayed the greater the sacrifices would add up. But in contrast I in turn think about how long we stayed in Japan and Germany after WWII. Spoiler Alert - we're still there now; but for some reason we thought we could change the way of life in Iraq & Afghanistan in a single generation of our virtuous presence.

As a young Marine I learned about Commander's Intent, and desired End States: When we are done doing this what do we want to people, place, or problem to look like. There came a time where a school of thought emerged that said we needed to get away from End State thinking because imposing our will to achieve and endstate that exists in our own minds is unrealistic and ultimately leads to bad decison making. This school of thought doesn't seem to have stuck; I assume because it didn't offer an alternative that allowed for unity of effort towards a common goal.

I recently read a quote from a fictional character that went something along the lines of; 'The fight isn't over until you decide you've won.' (please forgive the innacuracy, along with my inability to attribute the specific book but it was in Robin Hobb's Assassin's Aprentice Trilogy) My point in bringint that quote up is that end states are just temporary way points in history. In so many ways, the End of WWI led directly to WWII, and the end of WWII led to the Cold War, which in turn ended in such a way that we ended up with the balance (or imbalance) of power that led to Terrorism, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars.

Instead of "How will this end?", I would prefer to ask "What will this lead us into?"

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founding

Twenty years ago I was at Fort Campbell, KY preparing to deploy to Kuwait/Iraq with a combat support hospital. It was our final week of preparation and I only knew a couple of folks who were from the hospital where I was permanently assigned at Fort Stewart, GA. We then spent several days traveling by busses, planes and more busses to our Camp Udari base for a short period before moving on in to Iraq by tactical vehicles and helicopters. We saw many wounded soldiers, mostly marines who had been caught in ambush. By the time we got to Iraq we had mainly Iraqi civilians who had been injured — most by their own countrymen.

I honestly don’t think about that time very often but since you wanted to know where we were I thought I would write this. It was not political for me at all — it was about service and my promise to protect and defend. We spent a great deal of time running for bunkers in the middle of the night during scud alerts and donning full chemical protective gear — those of you who know realize how much fun that is. I tell this because, even as nurses “in the rear” we were not in a “safe” place. We saw plenty of suffering and suffered some ourselves.

If anything, it did make me hate war but I also believe that there are worse things - like living in fear or watching the suffering of others whom we might help.

Dola

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