I was kind of surprised that we took on the War on Terror when we were still fighting the War on Drugs. WOD hasn’t had much publicity lately. Perhaps it’s because we’re losing it. It’s not from lack of trying. According to Drugsense.org federal and state government has spent $32 billion so far this year, arrested 1,300,000 people (including 605,000 for cannabis possession) and have convicted and imprisoned 648 everyday.
Why, it’s almost become an important industry—the law and justice part, that is. Presumably the dealers are still doing well.
I suppose war is a question of setting priorities. What/who should we attack? In an average year in the U.S.A.:
# Tobacco kills about 390,000.
# Adverse affects of pharmaceuticals kills about 106,000
# Alcohol kills about 80,000.
# Infection in hospitals kills about 80,000
# Side stream smoke from tobacco kills about 50,000.
# Other errors in hospitals kill 20,000
# Medication errors in hospitals kill about 7000
# Cocaine kills about 2,200.
# Unnecessary surgery kills about 2000
# Heroin kills about 2,000.
# Aspirin kills about 2,000.
# Airplane crashes kill about 300
# Marijuana kills 0.
# Terrorists kill about ?
# All illegal drugs combined kill about 4,500 people per year.
Based on the statistics it’s hard to find the logic for WOD. And, given our performance on WOD it’s kind of hard to imagine how we will succeed in the WOT. If we can’t find drug lords with the assistance of the governments of Mexico, Columbia, etc., and with lots of Hispanic and Spanish-speaking DEA, FBI and Customs agents, how will we ever root out the terrorists when we are trying to operate in strange cultures with inadequate language skills?
Why do we pick wars that are such hard work?
If we have to have a war it sure would be a lot easier to declare a WOP (War on Physicians), or a WOPh (War on Pharmacists), a WOB (War on Breweries), a WOT (War on Tobacco), or a WOH (War on Hospitals). We know where all those folks do business. Heck, we know where they live. They’re in the phone book. No need for undercover agents. Just bring in an air strike; call out the swat team.
“What got him going on this,” you might ask. Well, I just received my DD214 to send into the Social Security Administration. Being a vet entitles me to $8 a month extra if I can prove my service. The spoils of war, you might say.
The DD214 is the document you receive when you are discharged from the military and gives a brief recap of your service to your country. I didn’t learn much from reading it. I remembered, for example, that I’d been in Vietnam. But what I forgot was that my Vietnam Service Medal has three battle stars. Well, I certainly didn’t recall being in any actual battles. Through a bit of Googling I discovered that these stars were awarded by being in Vietnam or around it, e.g. Thailand during certain periods. These periods were technically designated as campaigns and there were seventeen of them.
The campaigns have nice names like “Defense,” “Counteroffensive,” and “Counteroffensive Phase II,” (the ones I was around for), and “Operation Iraqi Freedom” (whoops, wrong DD214).
The final campaign in my war was called euphemistically called “Vietnam Cease Fire.” That’s the one where we declared victory in the WOVN and left. It was hard work. Too hard.
Our political leaders feel compelled to be at War. It’s actually hard work to try and keep track of all of them. This website http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/foabroad.htm cites 243 times that U.S. military forces have been used abroad during the period 1798-1993. The number has, of course, increased since then. Not all of these were big actions. But the fact is, our history is full of war and warlike action.
The statistics above don’t even count our theme wars like the War on Drugs and War on Terror. These are in a second category of wars that include the Cold War which ‘some people say’ we (or maybe is was President Reagan) won.
I belong to the school of thought that we should only be allowed to have one shooting war and one theme war at the same time. Right now, have an excessive number of wars. It’s too hard.
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