Peace Is Always the Best Path

The case for staying out of it.

At 40, my thoughts are much different than they would have been, and were, at 20. At 20, I was still almost two years from contracting with the Ole Miss Army ROTC, but was a hardcore southern war hawk who had just voted for “Dubya” in the first election I was old enough to vote in, which took place in one of the worst years of the Iraq War – 2004.

With far less information available in those early days before we all had super computers in our pockets, the American foreign policy world appears in two shades – those who supported the troops, and those who didn’t. Simply put, if you complained about the war in Iraq, you were a pinko commie, Jane Fonda caliber squish who wanted to ignore the attacks of 9/11.

One book changed my life while serving in Afghanistan as the twilight-shift intelligence officer for my deployed Task Force in 2010, at the height of the surge:

Warning: if you read this book, you’ll never see Iraq and Afghanistan the same way

It always made the young officers appear smarter when the commander would walk by and see a book next to our workstations, so Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare got its turn in my reading cycle as I was growing frustrated with watching the “patch chart” broadcast future unit deployments extending out all the way to 2018, with no apparent plan to win the war in place at the Pentagon. Fascinating tidbits of information entered my brain, including the simple fact that counterinsurgencies are never successful unless they are conducted on islands. Afghanistan was landlocked, and the size of Texas.

Guess who was filing paperwork to leave the Army within the next three years?

It took firsthand experience to understand the world neoconservatism created, and the vast propaganda networks keeping it on life support. I became Captain Seth Keshel because I wanted to pursue the family profession, and didn’t have enough understanding of foreign policy, top-level military strategy, and other cultures to realize the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, like the one in Vietnam, were always unwinnable, and would come at an unbearable cost of human capital, treasure, and readiness.

I do not regret my service. It has prepared me for the more important mission I’ve been on for the past four years, gave me critical leadership experience, and has helped me understand do or die in a brand-new sense. There is no crucible like military officership to transform a college mind into a pragmatic toolkit for real-life solutions. I understand the data over time and space as I do largely because I dedicated years of my youth tracking and deciphering it under intense pressure to be right.

With these background notes stated, I am reluctant to wade into the Israel-Iran debate, because few possess the maturity needed to see it for what it is. Some label opposition to U.S. involvement as enabling Iran and its regime, while others say the same thing in reverse – that staying out of it allows Israel to operate unchecked. Even worse, the most unfair criticisms come from those who label anything questioning anyone’s motives or actions as antisemitism, which ironically are the same tactics leftists use to shut down rational debate (racist, Nazi, misogynist, etc.).

My foreign policy views, especially those of a military sense, remain the same as they were in 2013. When I returned from Afghanistan, I attended the Military Intelligence Captain’s Career Course, and received orders to serve in Alaska. My unit there was to serve as a rapid response brigade for the Pacific Command (PACOM), training with allies and standing ready to deter aggression in the region – in other words, what the Army is supposed to do. When the mission once again turned to infinite tours in Afghanistan, my decision was easy. Another great book, this one by Ron Paul, helped make getting out a very easy call.

Politically, President Trump lays claim to the title of the peace president, being the first in many decades to not entangle America in a new conflict in his first administration; this moniker has carried him into another term, and his stance against military intervention is widely popular.

Fun fact: it is believed George W. Bush lost Wisconsin in 2004 because the French Canadian and Scandinavian populations, known anti-war voters, backed off their previous support for him, tipping the state to John Kerry. This was due to Bush’s pursuit of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Trump’s critics are bringing up continued hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, and now the brewing war in the Middle East, as a knock against the peace president and his negotiation skills. Well, kids being obnoxious in the next neighborhood over don’t make me a bad dad with out-of-control children, so it’s not really a fair assessment, especially if the world’s intelligence agencies are busy keeping tensions inflamed because war is profitable.

Just ask this guy:

Or this one, who stabbed President Trump in the back as often as asked:

War is not a game, Senator Graham. War is an occasional and evil necessity of a fallen world, and not necessarily necessary in every case that can be drummed up by those who stand to profit from the conflict itself, or the vacuums to come as the conflict wanes. This is not to say that supporters of Iran, or supporters of Israel, or the citizens therein, may not find themselves in support of an extended conflict (remember, the Iran-Iraq war lasted for 8 years) in which they must fight (and are compelled by government to do so), but this does not and should not force the hand of the American Commander-in-Chief to commit American sons and daughters to the fight.