tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490962.post7022436325138364088..comments2023-12-10T10:06:41.979+00:00Comments on mutations of mortality: The Afghan warTerry Hamblinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06346629921055055879noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490962.post-49168474406805612682009-09-08T03:50:36.813+01:002009-09-08T03:50:36.813+01:00Special invitation to leukemia bloggers. This mon...Special invitation to leukemia bloggers. This month’s Book Club selection at www.beingcancer.net is by leukemia and transplant survivor, Evan Handler. Handler is a noted Broadway and television actor best known as Charlotte’s boyfriend/husband in Sex and the City. He has also appeared in Lost, The West Wing, and Studio 60. This funny and poignant book covers his diagnosis with AML, his remission, relapse, and treatment with bone marrow transplant at John Hopkins and Memorial Sloan-Kettering. You can order a new or used copy of the book from my site. Discussion began today and will continue for the next three Mondays in September.<br />Take care, DennisDennis Pyritz, RNhttp://www.beingcancer.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19490962.post-67437123152810914722009-09-06T14:42:41.911+01:002009-09-06T14:42:41.911+01:00The lesson of Vietnam was that you can't fight...The lesson of Vietnam was that you can't fight a war half way. You can't defeat enemies who have sanctuaries and state sponsors. The Taliban have both, in Pakistan and in Iran. The mullah regime in Iran should have been taken out decades ago. And we should be more engaged with Pakistan.<br /><br />Another lesson is that you cannot let the enemy hide behind civilians, especially when many of those civilians are really sympathetic to them.<br /><br />The "Just War" theory that requires that a nation sacrifice its own soldiers to avoid killing civilians is a recipe for suicide.<br /><br />Where does it say that the lives of civilians in some foreign country should be more important to me than the life of a son in the military or the life of the son of my neighbor?<br /><br />You enemy should be attacked mercilessly as was done against Germany and Japan in WWII. You must do more than kill their military. You must destroy their will to fight. <br /><br />The goal is to end the war and impose free societies on these nations. When that is done properly, you have nations like Japan and Germany are today. The alternative is endless conflict and the decline that comes with it.<br /><br />My president is MY president. It's his job to protect me and my countrymen, not to send them away to be killed in some vain altruistic enterprise. If he can't do that, he is not doing his job.<br /><br />If this approach seems objectionable, I say that all the alternatives are worse.<br /><br />War is hell. The only thing to do is to fight to win with the least losses to yourself and your own nation.<br /><br />As for "innocents" who die, moral responsibility for that lies with those who made the wars necessary, people like Hitler, the Japanese warlords, Saddam Hussein, et al.<br /><br />You can't cure cancer without doing some damage to other parts of the body. Ditto for dealing with monsters who take over nations and tyrannize their citizens and the rest of the world.Burkenoreply@blogger.com