No One Wins in War

Have our political leaders not learned that no one “wins” in a war, but that hundreds of thousands of humans die, most of them civilians, many of them children?

Did we “win” in Vietnam? We were forced to withdraw, but only after 2 million Vietnamese died, again mostly civilians, again leaving children burned or armless or legless, and 58,000 American soldiers dead.

Did we win in the first Gulf War? Not really. Yes, we pushed Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, with only a few hundred US casualties, but perhaps 100,000 Iraqis died.

In Afghanistan, the United States declared “victory” over the Taliban. Now the Taliban is back, and attacks are increasing.

[Excerpt of an article by Howard Zinn, The Boston Globe]