Surrender

We complain about how our involvement in the Middle East drags on and on. Fourteen years after we decided to go after a group of terrorists backed by Saudi Arabia by invading Afghanistan and Iraq, our geography is still in question. That along with our seeming unease with the thought of allowing any kind of discussion of the Monroe Doctrine. Don't mess with us, and we won't mess with you. But it doesn't work that way. We are the world's playground supervisor. We're not going to let anyone get into a fight that we can't have a hand in ourselves. That's why we are sending special forces to Syria. The likelihood of our special forces ending up shooting at Russian special forces has just increased to "a lot." That's because Vlad "Bear Hugger" Putin has never heard of the Monroe Doctrine, either. But what offends me most is the way these two old foes seem to believe that roaming around the globe looking for scores to settle is a way to keep the problems at home from becoming any worse than they already are.
Like the War on Drugs. This particular war has been raging, off and on, since 1971 when President Richard Nixon declared illegal drugs "public enemy number one." Illegal drugs being the culprit, since legal drugs like alcohol had already been tried, convicted, prohibited and then reinstated as being better than candy to become a hundred billion dollar industry here in these United States. And yet, the War on Drugs continues some forty-four years later. Sure there has been some movement here and there, in places like Colorado and Oregon where the tax advantages have been seen as far outweighing the cost of enforcing laws for some drugs. I'm looking at your bloodshot eyes, cannabis. Still, combined state and federal spending on the battle to keep us free of drugs, unless you're counting Budweiser and NyQuil, has moved past the thirty-four billion dollar mark for the year, and shows little or no signs of slowing down. How can we afford to pay for that and keeping "boots on the ground" in Syria?
Well, we can't. That's why we have this thing called a deficit. Over in the old country, Ireland to be precise, they are thinking of ways to save money. Like decriminalizing small amounts of pot, cocaine and heroin. Money will be spent on getting those with problems the help they need: hygenic places to inject and substance abuse counseling. This would be similar to the policy in Portugal, Possession of small amounts of drugs in Portugal is treated as a health issue, not a criminal one. This is probably an elevated state of thinking for a country that does not recognize "self-defense" as a reason to own a gun.
What I'm suggesting here is that all wars eventually end, and we might want to start thinking about our terms of surrender.