Willie Nelson sings “gee ain’t it funny how time slips away”. Karen and I attended a gravesite services the other day and noted that we were the oldest people there. Always before someone from the previous generation would be present, but that time has come and gone.
There is an old saying that wars are easy to get into, but hard to get out of. Churchill said “only the dead have seen the end of war” and the goal of most rational leaders is to make sure that small wars don’t become world wars. Even though the small wars are extremely violent, they soon fade into history. Small wars have limited objectives and when those are met, both participants have an opportunity to survive, while trying to grab for more often have painful repercussions. In Korea with limited casualties the North Koreans had been driven out of the South and the boundaries restored. By driving into North Korea, Red China was brought into the war and many American soldiers never came home.
The opposite example was George Herbert Walker Bush’s management of the Desert Storm War with Iraq. Once he achieved the stated purpose of the mission, driving Hussein out of Kuwait with limited casualties, he declared victory and brought the troops home. He lost his reelection in 1992 while being criticized for not finishing the job. Sometimes doing the right thing doesn’t win you any trophies.
