When those wars were beginning, I knew that Afghanistan would be a failure because no external power has ever been able to successfully occupy that region, not since Alexander the Great tried it in antiquity (ever heard of the Soviet Union, anyone?). And I figured that the removal of the Baathists in Iraq would merely empower the majority Shia who would come under Iran’s influence, which is exactly what happened. Anyone with a run-of-the-mill knowledge of the geopolitics of the region could have predicted it.

By Patrick J. Buchanan, Intellectual Takeout

Through the long Memorial Day weekend, anyone who read the newspapers or watched television could not miss or be unmoved by it: Story after story after story of the fallen, of those who had given the “last full measure of devotion” to their country. Heart-rending is an apt description of those stories; and searing are the videos of those who survived and returned home without arms or legs. But the stories could not help but bring questions to mind.

While the service and sacrifice were always honorable and often heroic, never to be forgotten, were the wars these soldiers were sent to fight and die in wise? Were they necessary? What became of the causes for which these Americans were sent to fight in the new century, with thousands to die and tens of thousands to come home with permanent wounds? And what became of the causes for which they were sent to fight?

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