Sooo America is rubbish at winning wars eh? and it needs to start "winning wars" - really?

I see your point but...doesn't it strike you as worrying that he might be more war mongering than not?   Personally I think we should ALL have adequate and effective military and naval forces with which to defend ourselves... 

I suspect it's more about the wisdom of the wars America has engaged in? 

with respect, I liked your post very much, but do feel that the problem is that many of the wars entered into recently were NOT justified.. that makes it a whole lot harder..   Personally I am all for a strong America in terms of military and navy... I fear they may need it sooner than they think with Russia.. not immediately but I worry it's coming.. and/or you may need sufficient resources to make sure they DON'T see America as an easy target.. enough to be a good deterrent I mean...  but just like we didn't in our past America has not always used that power wisely.

No worries,  that was basically my point anyway.  Even if I disagreed, no worries.

Respectfully.. I would say that America likes to think of themselves as world's policemen - the world has differing opinions on that and respectfully I would say the last war was DEEPLY unpopular with most of the world, even previous allies believing it was arrogant of America, that there was no need and that it was even motivated by money rather than principles... America was not popular for starting that war... and we, Brits were not popular for following lap-dog style into the war. 

America does indeed think that, and many here feel that is our proper role.  There was even a white paper that a think tank here published in 2000 that advocates exactly that.  It speaks of our "constabulary duties", " Pax Americana, and of America not only dominating the world, but space and cyberspace as well.  It mentioned dozens of countries, as well as Saddam Hussein by name (as did another white paper written for Israel that was co-authored by one of the people assiociated with this think tank).

Oddly enough, as you have made your feelings on Trump and how you feel he is itching for war abundantly clear, one of the co-founders of that think tank came out in full support of Clinton.  I do/did not like either of our choices this past election.  I firmly believe Clinton was the more hawkish of the two, however.  The Republicans that came out in support of her only reinforced that opinion. 

I am well aware that much of the world dislikes our military "interventions".  At the end of 2013 a Win/Gallup annual poll showed that America was seen as the biggest threat to world peace.  I do not disagree.  If we decided to mind our own business, would someone else step in and take our place...hmmm.  

I assume, and please correct me if I am wrong, that you speak of Iraq.  I concur with those who believe that.  Factually, all wars are motivated by money.  Power/control = money, natural resources = money.  All wars.  That is not to say that is why every country fights/gets drawn in, just why they begin.  Iraq is no exception.  SH had begun selling his oil for euros, that threatened the petrodollar, ergo SH had to die.  Ditto for Qadaffi.

My views are hated by many of my fellow citizens.  They are, however, JMHO. 

??  I may have misunderstood here.. but I know you have made comments about Brits and wars and empire and holding objects stolen during occupation before.. so I will try to guess and address what you might be referring to.. 

For a piddly little nation we have engaged in a LOT of wars.. some we won, some we lost, some we conceded, some we just plain returned to their own nations.. For our size we did pretty remarkably.. am I proud of that? No we did a LOT wrong, most of this was over 100 years ago and ranged over hundreds of years before that.. those were different times.. we behaved badly in MANY cases, MOSTLY with co-operation of their own people. (they must take some blame for selling out their own people for greed and power) and we were NOT the only empire builders.. most of Europe was... Dutch, SPanish, Portugese, French.. all just as bad.. bad times.. I am proud of our *might* for our size.. but we used it very badly :(  

Some fought for their independence.. some were given it.. it's not black and white in any of the cases..  Very telling is that we retained good relationships with most, if not all of the former empire countries..  Interestingly MOST Brit people in empire days were as much powerless, exploited slaves as those in the countries Britain ruled.  I like to think that change was instigated by those who knew it was wrong.. and snowballed from there.. WE the people started to get better education and freedoms.. we had more say.. WE the people are not in favour of exploitation.. cite that Brit-land today is less racist, more accepting of others and their religion and orientation than many...  aka we learned, we evolved, we moved on..  most of those wronged forgave us.. We know it was wrong.. it's kinda tough to have people continually hold onto the past. (not you personally but we hear this a lot) 

Re the treasures and artifacts we stole, yes we DID do that.. but so did all the others and it's still going on today.. on TV we see American *treasure* hunters and gold hunters exploiting poorer nations for their treasures and artifacts..  for sure that doesn't make it ok.. but it would be unfair to single out the UK as so many seem to want to do, mainly because it's not accurate to forget what others were and in many cases ARE still doing.  This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at March 2, 2017 12:23 AM MST

Ah you've taken me wrong dear... all i was saying or alluding too was their own war of independence.... and how they keep getting tangled up in others wars of independence ... and generally on the wrong side ....

Dear Ozgirl...change of subject from this very intense topic...but did you change your avatar?
I do not recall seeing the Marlene Dietrich...although I am not all that observant...

Pearl, I wish everyone would listen to you!

I've said this before & I'll say it again.... if there were more women in power the world would be a much more peaceful place.

I must agree.