How Can We Be Proud of Our Military When They Lose Every War?

Yesterday I was thinking of the great expense and emphasis we put on having the greatest military killing machine on the planet. Today I am wondering what value we get for our money. I think that since WW11 we have lost badly every military intervention we have attempted.

It is hard to even remember them all, let alone the justifications for them. Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iran, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, Columbia, And so on. Now we are moving our magic into Nigeria, Congo, every African nation where there is trouble.

I think we are basically really bad at the colonization sport. When Spain and England were conquering the world, They did a bang up job. Their colonies lasted hundreds of years. We don't have the what it takes to catch a really big fish in this game. I think it is in part because we can not be honest about our intentions. We use lame excuses like stopping the spread of communism or spreading democracy.

The democracy argument is especially lame because democracy is messy and, son of a bitch, we can't quite control it the way we want to. Those idiots in other countries might remember how we supported their awful dictators and then supported their overthrow and then tried and failed to punish, terrorize the population into putting whomever we back into a democratically elected process.

And how has this worked? Some poor country with not a pot to piss in suddenly becomes the most threatening enemy imaginable. Like El Salvador, like Nicaragua, like Vietnam. We go in acting like the population which is still trying to rid itself of our dictators will rise up like Cuba did behind Fidel and Che and think of us as saviors. Somehow these dumb ignorant, don't understand that we are the good guys, local yokels don't buy what we are selling. Is is perhaps because we don't either? Are we suddenly interested in African nations because we need certain minerals for computer parts? Why are we always going to war with little helpless nations?

And back to my big question: why don't they want to be saved by us? Why can't our military do its job well enough that we can rule the world in peace and take care of other populations in the same enlightened loving manner that we set in our own country? Why do we keep throwing more money at a failed military? Why don't we try first to be honest about what is behind our policy and see if our shaky democracy can support it? I think we don't even believe ourselves anymore.