What has brought us to the point of yet again waging war without any goals for peace? The US stance of becoming a "conquering hero" has not produced success in many decades, and it's a stance that has led to the deaths of millions of Afghanis, Iraqis, and Pakistanis in the "War on Terror" that dragged on for 13 years and counting.
Why are we not learning from history and making changes to our approach? Good grief, we've killed millions of people -- a good portion of whom were civilians. We've detained and tortured tens of thousands of people from those countries. We've demonstrated that we're a ruthless, brutal, savage foe that will pulverize the bones of cab drivers who surrender to our troops. We have disseminated photographic and video proof that we'll blow up children, murder detainees awaiting a hearing for unknown charges, sexually abuse and humiliate just about anyone available, and kidnap noncombatant children to use as leverage against their fathers.
And the US perpetrators of those savage acts -- how do they look in those videos and photographs? Gleeful. Like they're at a frat party, sometimes with drinks in their hands. Eager to bash someone's head in, smear feces on naked bodies, piss on holy books, sic dogs on terrified/terrorized civilians, smash into homes, bomb wedding parties, and murder random innocent people because they're angry that other people killed their comrades.
We have firmly shown that we are the moral equivalent of ISIL.
And now ISIL is using that moral equivalency to taunt the US into taking military action and therefore solidify ISIL's credibility in the world as a nation builder that is being taken on by the world's most powerful but least effective military.
Way. To. Go. Mission accomplished.