It was General William Tecumseh Sherman, the U.S. Civil War Union Army leader known for “Sherman's March to the Sea," who famously said “War is Hell.” Right now, there is probably no better face of that statement than that of Captain Sam Brown. After graduating from West Point, he served in Afghanistan, and sustained burns to thirty percent of his body due to an improvised explosive device.
Four other soldiers were injured with him, and one other soldier died.
Captain Brown is now the Republican candidate for the US Senate for the state of Nevada. He gave a speech at the Republican convention in Milwaukee, and he said the following: “Look at my face. This is the high cost of war. If Joe Biden stays in office, more service members will pay this price. He has brought our nation humiliation, defeat, and to the brink of more war.”
It was a very emotional moment, and it raised a very important issue for this presidential election. Is Captain Brown correct? Will Biden’s policies remain the same under the direction of VP Harris? Will those same policies bring us to the “brink of more war,” death and destruction? Biden is supporting his vice president Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination, and she now seems to be the favorite of the Democratic Party, so let’s look at the actual words and actions of the Biden-Harris team and compare that to the words and actions of the former President Trump.
The first and easiest comparison is to note that in the past, Russia did not invade Ukraine and Hamas did not invade Israel while Trump was President, but they did so when Biden-Harris occupied the executive office. We believe that the Biden-Harris “war” against fossil fuels was a major cause of the significant increase in crude oil prices that occurred during the Biden presidency; and that the increased revenue coming from higher oil prices allowed two of the world’s biggest oil producers, Iran and Russia, to spread horrific war in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
In the future, we believe President Trump will relax US energy restrictions. The end result will be lower energy prices, reduced revenue for Iran and Russia, and less money to enable them to spread death and destruction. In contrast, we believe the energy policy of any Democrat will remain the same, and that policy will enable Iran and Russia to continue their attacks, putting many US troops in the region at much more risk.
Turning to the long civil war in Syria and the prolonged conflict in Iraq, President Trump promised to end “forever wars.” He did not quite succeed, but did significantly reduce US troop levels in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and he completely withdrew troops from Somalia. In contrast, under the Biden-Harris Administration, the number of soldiers in Syria increased, and US soldiers went back to fight in Somalia.
In Ukraine, Trump has said that as President, he will immediately seek a peace deal and end the war that has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and terrible destruction. In contrast, Biden-Harris made no peace initiatives, and instead said that the United States will financially support Ukraine “as long as it takes.” And as a matter of fact, the United States has soldiers in Ukraine for training purposes, but supposedly they are not at risk and not doing any fighting.
The China/Taiwan situation is perhaps the most worrisome. According to Time Magazine, the U.S. has traditionally adopted a policy of strategic ambiguity, acknowledging China’s historical claims to sovereignty over Taiwan, while maintaining only unofficial relations with Taipei and pledging defensive assistance. Biden-Harris has gone further, with Biden unequivocally stating that, "if China invades Taiwan, we will defend Taiwan.” According to Time, former President Trump refused to say what he would do, but he did note the difficulty of defending Taiwan, saying that Taiwan was 9,000 miles from our border, while it was only 100 miles away from the China mainland.
While he was in office, President Trump continually criticized the European nations, and he insisted that they must take the lead, both financially and manpower wise, to defend against any Russian threat. As a candidate he has repeated that mantra and is applying the same reasoning to Taiwan. If we understand the former President correctly, he is basically asking: why should we defend these countries, if they are not going to pay more and do what it takes to defend themselves? In contrast, President Biden has promised that we will spend “whatever it takes.”
When I was in college many years ago, many of my generation protested against the Vietnam War, which caused the death of over 55,000 American soldiers and the countless injuries, both physically and psychologically, to tens of thousands of others. We went to war to in Vietnam to defend democracy against Communism. Well, despite the fact that we lost that war, Communism did not spread in Asia.
You are now hearing the same from Democratic leaders (and some Republicans) about the Ukraine – we have to defend democracy against Russia. They are saying that despite the fact that Ukraine is not a democracy, and they are postulating that once Russia prevails in Ukraine, it will then move against the democratic nations in NATO in eastern Europe. We don’t believe that for a minute. In the Ukraine, the Russian Army has proven itself inept, and we believe that European nations have more than ample means to defend itself, especially with US assistance.
In ending, we’ll return to the words of Captain Sam Brown – “look at my face,” but we will end by looking at the face of Captain Brown before he was injured.
Yes, Captain Brown is the face of war, and just like he implied, this, and not just the money spent fighting, is the real “high cost of war.” It is a sad fact that countless number of people in Gaza, Syria and Ukraine have been maimed, just like the brave captain, and killed during the last four years. The destruction of buildings and infrastructure, and the resulting malnutrition and starving of people is hard to watch on the evening news, but it is nothing compared to having to live in these countries where death and destruction are the norm.
At this point in time, it now appears that Vice-President Harris will be the Democratic presidential candidate. We’re not really sure how she will, in the future, differ in foreign policy from President Biden; however, we do know that she has publicly supported all of President Biden’s past words and actions. For that reason, we agree with Captain Brown, and we think it is much more likely that if VP Harris is elected as President, more US soldiers will pay “his cost.”
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