I can't help but wonder would there really be this much of a divide on DU about military action

[Man from Pickens]

60. I did as well

But today, I have the benefit of learning from that experience, and am far, far, more skeptical of getting involved abroad.

Even if the initial reasons for engagement are all the right ones, it seems inevitable that every military adventure gets taken over by military contractors, at which point the goal becomes to keep the contracts flowing and not to achieve the stated objective.

Look at Afghanistan. Nothing at all is being achieved in terms of strategic objectives. We are over a dozen years into it already. Does anybody doubt that if this country were serious about achieving some objective there, it would have done so long ago?

The only way we can call Afghanistan a success is if the goal was to enrich contractors, or to facilitate the opium/heroin trade. I seriously doubt that the nation would have approved of those objectives as valid reasons to go in.