[Skybird]

Keep nation, people, politicians and military separate.

Iraq was screwed up by political ideologists, not by the military - the Pentagon was very hesitent to go there, and did not like the initial idea. Of course, it obeyed to the orders to go there, and how.

A nation's and people's value is not represented by its military only. Soldiers are not the better citizens, nor are they the elite of a people. They are one part of it - and not even a representative part of it, seen from a sociological point of view. The rich and educated elites, and those rejecting military service, are underrepresented in it, so are various ethnic and/or religious groups and eventually females. That a nation's military is a mirror of it's social community, is a popular myth.

Politicians are a kind of their own, they only partially represent nation's values, or their people, and they tend to abuse the military. The people certainly often is stupid enough to vote for this or that given idiot, that is part of their share of responsibility for the state of their society. But certainly it is better that stupid politicians tell the military what to do, than the military telling the politicians.

The industrial-military complex, as Eisenhower put it, now is an abstract entity of it'S own, and is more defined by a network of mutual relations and allying of interests from various sides, than by solid existence.

It all ain't no perfect. Maybe one could imagine better ways of doing - but whether mankind is capable and willing to implement these better visions, must be put in doubt. And whether the current ways of doing are sufficient, must be put in doubt as well, if considering the fact that we are destroying our own basis of suvival for short-termed lobby interests, and doing so with remarkable enthusiasm and self-deception.