Donald Trump ran for the White House on a general policy of making peace and opposing wars. However, his specific positions on Libya, Iran and ISIS were inconsistent with his generalized rhetoric. Thus, it should come as no surprise that Donald Trump continues to launch missions in the undeclared war against Yemen.

The assault upon Yemen began under Barack Obama when a revolutionary movement did not go the way American officials wanted. Coverage of the war has been limited in the media, but that all changes for now. The first notable military attack by the Donald Trump administration have received much scrutiny.

In the January 28 attack, the United States lost an airplane and the life of a Navy SEAL. On the ground, innocent women and children were killed.

The Donald Trump administration declared the operation a “success.” Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona denied the operation was a success, saying:

When you lose a 75 million dollar airplane and more importantly American lives …

I don’t believe you can call it a success.

John McCain’s statement is a bottom-line assessment providing strong reason to oppose all wars:

In wars, operations with losses of American lives or of American airplanes cannot be called successes.

In all wars, there are losses of American lives or of American airplanes.

Therefore, all wars cannot be called successes, and no successes can come of wars.

While the statement does not specifically indicate that wars are failures, it does say absolutely that there can be no successful “mission accomplished” — virtually not ever.

This is the type of simplistic sloganeering rhetoric that passes for political analysis. John McCain also said:

My understanding of the parameters of the raid were they wanted to capture individuals and obviously they didn’t want to kill children or women and obviously it was not the intention to lose a $75 million airplane as well as the loss of a life.

That’s called war, or at least a military action or police action.

John McCain supported wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. In all of those actions, airplanes and American lives were lost. Women and children were killed too. Using the John McCain standard, none of those were successes. His statement on the Yemen operation teaches us nothing — except that he wants to stoke outrage and fear to support his convenient political position. This is called propaganda.