Face, meet palm.
We live in a bizarre time. We call tax hikes 'revenues.' We call spending hikes 'investments.' And we call war 'peacekeeping.' It's no wonder we fail at all of them: we don't even know what they are.
Democrats on the Hill today are proposing the creation of a 'Department of Peacebuilding' because, evidently, our government is not currently wasting enough of your money or wasting enough time pursuing feel-good goals that can't possibly be achieved.
Just try to imagine what these 'peacebuilding' forces will look like. Ask the worldwide rape victims of the United Nations 'Peacekeepers' what they think.
If you want peace, I have a better idea.
Let's rename the Department of Defense back to it's previous name, The Department of War, and let's get back to the business of winning them for a change. Instead of sending troops all over the globe under the slippery context of defense -- or worse yet, peace -- let's return to the Department of War mindset when we actually won wars -- unambiguously, unmistakably and unapologetically won wars.
It's a sobering decision to go to war, or at least it should be. It's a last resort option, like open-heart surgery, but sometimes it is necessary. When we hide behind euphemisms like peacekeeping or peacebuilding or even defense, we fool ourselves into protracted and seemingly inextricable conflicts. Our enemies declare war on us but we refuse to declare war on them. In the end, this is worse than war itself.
Want peace? Then decide wisely, decide soberly when the dangers before us warrant war and then officially declare it and unambiguously win it. Want peace? Then forget the hippies; call in the Department of War.
)
