For a country whose leaders cry incessantly that they hate war, we seem to be in an awful lot of them. The problem is, since Korea we have decided not to win any of them. Korea was a police action, designed to push the North Koreans back across the 38th parallel, but not to remove the communist regime. Vietnam the same – push ‘em back, but don’t do anything to really hurt them. Kosovo we dropped a few bombs from 40,000 feet and went home. Iraq we won the war but threw it away by Obama who said victory was not an option. In Afghanistan Obama committed troops at the same time he announced the date we would leave. When we declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor did we tell them were leaving the war in 1943? We did not. We used to have presidents who thought victory was the desired result of going to war. No longer. And now Obama says war with Syria, but not more than a day or two. This is insane. Don’t we still make hobnailed boots?
The wars once won by hobnail boots
Now simmer, never boil
And thus it is that most disputes
Continue then to roil
The very instances in fact
That caused disputes to rise
And then the side the hobnails backed
Was wont to win the prize
The prize was victory of course
Loathed now as déclassé
We have instead the charging horse
A hobnail-less sashay