War Is Betrayal | Boston Review

The poor embrace the military because every other cul-de-sac in their lives breaks their spirit and their dignity. Pick up Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front or James Jones’s From Here to Eternity. Read Henry IV. Turn to the Iliad. The allure of combat is a trap, a ploy, an old, dirty game of deception in which the powerful, who do not go to war, promise a mirage to those who do.

via War Is Betrayal | Boston Review.

Two Wars without Results

War, what the hell is it good for?

We lost in Vietnam, but what changed. Did we lose what we were told we would?

We won in Iraq, but what changed. We can barely cross borders in the US, without an ID check. Been to the airport? Do you feel as though you won the war. All the enemy is dead, yet do we have a better life freer, or even, just as free?

That little mouse roared, and we have shackled ourselves to absolutely nothing.