We are Americans. Wars of aggression and imperial occupations are not our style. The U.S. Army used to train against a fictitious enemy called the "Aggressor Army." It was organized similarly to the Russian and Warsaw Pact armies. The name I suppose was intended to represent the opposite of our army. If you excuse various unilateral Western Hemisphere interventions, we just didn't do wars of aggression. Until the Bush administration ordered the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003.

war is the American way! Rah rah rah don't ya know!

OMG, great post!

They aren't people. They are "collateral damage"

US-led coalition airstrikes targeting the Islamic State and other designated terrorist groups in Syria have killed 380 civilians, including 99 children and 67 women, over the past 18 months, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The monitoring group said that it had documented these mortalities among a total of 4,643 deaths resulting from Operation Inherent Resolve, which the coalition launched on September 23, 2014 with a mission to "degrade and defeat" the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

Among the civilians allegedly killed by airstrikes is a family of seven that died in the village of Dali Hasan and another 64 people in Bir Mahli. The attacks blamed for their deaths both took place in Aleppo Province on April 30, 2015.

The US military has admitted to killing just 21 civilians since Operation Inherent Resolve began.

Chris Davis, director of the website Airwars, which tracks and compiles data about airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, says that the number of deaths documented by SOHR is far too low. Airwars estimates that the US-led coalition has likely killed around 519 civilians in Syria alone.

"More than 1000 civilians have been killed by the coalition in Iraq and Syria, by everybody's count," he said, noting that, as of Wednesday, more than 11,000 bombs had been dropped onto both countries since the start of the operation.

The wind shifted since.

I have always been impressed by how Danziger captures the zeitgeist of Mars.

A fine rant, Detroitmechworks. One the Mars-worshipers need to hear more often. I was reminded of a similar take on it from an earlier era.

In his book "War is a Racket", former Marine Corp Commandant Major General Smedley Butler suggested that what was needed before ever going to war, was a limited vote by those who would have to actually participate, to see if THEY thought it was necessary. We probably could have avoided most of our poorly-conceived wars with such a system. He also suggested that all those who profit from war should be conscripted for the duration, and paid the same as the soldiers.

BTW, IMHO "War is a Racket" is far too important of a book, and at a mere 14 pages, far too short, for any American to have an excuse not to read it. It's a former head of the Marines, a highly-decorated soldier, laying bare the actual mechanisms behind war. It was a glimpse of the MIC before Eisenhower named it that. If any of you haven't read it, I urge you to do so.

“Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it —

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."