[twblalock]

> "they’re not doing their job" --- their job being what?

At some point, a US president may need to send soldiers into a situation in which they will very likely die, in order to win a war. It has happened before, and it may happen again. If the president allows visits to wounded veterans to weaken his resolve, the consequences could be very bad. That's what Eliot Cohen is alluding to. He is not suggesting that the president should not care -- he is suggesting that the president needs to do what is necessary to win a war if one happens.

> Be smart, war is a racket, and suggesting a president should not be worried about the lives of the people he harms is fucked up.

Nobody suggested that the president should not worry about the lives of soldiers. Your interpretation is unreasonably uncharitable and is in fact a straw man.

[qznc]

> the president needs to do what is necessary to win a war if one happens

Not all wars can or should be won. For example, the war on drugs cannot be won, just like the war on alcohol was a mistake.

Sometimes, the greatest things a leader / president can do, is to acknowledge that he was (we were) wrong. However, pride prevents that. Once you decided to enter a war, you are entirely focused on winning it.

[ptaipale]

The war on drugs is not a war that soldiers fight. It's a figure of speech.

The war on terror is so-so.

[humanrebar]

> The war on drugs is not a war that soldiers fight.

There are a lot of decapitations and mass graves for something that isn't a war. If the people fighting aren't soldiers, what are they?

[ptaipale]

Criminals.

(By the way, soldiers generally don't decapitate enemies these days; doing so is a war crime.)

[natermer]

Carrying out and enforcing immoral laws makes you as much of a criminal as anybody.

The police state doesn't carry out showy public executions like the cartels do, but they have ruined many people's lives for no good reason and they have put plenty of otherwise innocent people in a grave.

And guess what? The American people pay for both sides. They pay for the cartels and they pay for the police state.

If the war on drugs never existed there wouldn't be any cartels in the first place. It's pure idiocy compounded with greed and profiteering on other people's misery.

You can't have the one of the highest percentage of the population in prison and call yourself a free country. It's bold faced contradiction. The USA beats out Turkmenistan FFS.

[humanrebar]

Fair point. Though calling those actions war crimes strengthens the point that there is actually a drug war going on.

[ptaipale]

When drug lords decapitate people, I don't call it a war crime. Just crime.

If soldiers wage war and then decapitate people (like Daesh does) then that's a war crime.

[qznc]

> The war on drugs is not a war that soldiers fight

Debatable. The police men / DEA involved probably feel like soldiers sometimes. The drug lords and governments in south america certainly have soldiers involved.

[eponeponepon]

They're being trained to think of themselves as soldiers. This will inevitably lead to them being soldiers, and that eventually ends in bog-standard straightforward war, indistinguishable from any waged by "real" soldiers.

[tracker1]

Most soldiers throughout history were not career soldiers or warriors. Most are people brought into the conflict without any intent to be a soldier before whatever brought them in.

[lostboys67]

paintball weekend warriors probably think that to but real soldiers consider them "walts"

[pjc50]

It certainly is in Mexico.

[twblalock]

> Not all wars can or should be won. For example, the war on drugs cannot be won, just like the war on alcohol was a mistake.

I'm talking about real wars, not metaphorical wars.

[qznc]

Yeah, the choice of war was not optimal. I'm looking for a war, which is mostly uncontroversial (on HN). Maybe Vietnam? The crusades?

[joslin01]

Vietnam is a great example that proves original OP right, actually. We should have never been in that war. It was a main driving force in the anti-war attitude of the 60s and 70s.

[arethuza]

Uncontroversial and Vietnam (or indeed the Crusades) aren't words that you see together very often!

[joslin01]

I like to think he was being slightly facetious asking what their job is -- like he's saying, "their job is to keep the racket going" which I agree with. He's saying "a president should not be worried.." in the context of a racket. I doubt a legitimate threat to humanity would stop a president or the people from going after it. That's just obvious and not really worth discussing.

[tdkl]

> order to win a war.

What war ? That's the war Butler is talking about. There's no winning or loosing endgame in that kind of war, because the most positive (for the initiators) is being done with prolonging it.