Endless War category archive
Legacy, Bushie Style, ISIS Dept. 0
In a long and tightly-reasoned article at Asia Times, Ramzy Baroud explores how the propaganda machine for the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq prepared the ground for ISIS. A snippet:
That “design” was not put in place arbitrarily. The conventional wisdom was that the US army is better seen as a “liberator” than an invader, where the Shiites community was supposedly being liberated from an oppressive Sunni minority. By doing so, those in their name Iraq was “liberated” were armed and empowered to fight the “Sunni insurgency” throughout the country. The “Sunni” discourse, laden with such terminology as the “Sunni Triangle” and “Sunni insurgents” and such, was a defining component of the American media and government perception of the war. In fact, there was no insurgency per se, but an organic Iraqi resistance to the US-led invasion.
The design had in fact served its purposes, but not for long. Iraqis turned against one another, as US troops mostly watched the chaotic scene from behind the well-fortified Green Zone. When it turned out that the US public still found the price of occupation too costly to bear, the US redeployed out of Iraq, leaving behind a broken society.
Do read the rest.
Cut Out the Middle Men 0
Thoreau suggests how to make endless war more efficient.
War and Mongers of War 0
On the take:
War and Mongers of War 0
Randolph T. Holbut wonders why we keep doing the same thing harder. A nugget (emphasis added):
They apparently learned nothing from the past 13 years.
Is the Islamic State brutal? Yes.
Are they an existential threat to the United States? Only if they get an army, a navy, and an air force. Like al-Qaeda. they don’t have them and are unlikely to gain the military capability to attack the United States.
So, why does our nation have to go through this dance all over again — ginning up a war against an enemy that sits about 7,000 miles away from our shores and doesn’t have a military force worthy of the name?
(snip)
It’s safe to say nobody knows for sure what will happen next. But looking back at the effectiveness of the last 13 years of America’s Mideast policy, one can see that continuing the same approach isn’t the answer.
Yet President Obama is committing our military forces to another Middle East war. Riding a wave of manufactured fear, he thinks he has no choice.
Jingo Jangle 0
Jon Stewart skewers the phony patriotism of Fox News and wingnuts.
Below the fold in case it autoplays.
I Can See Clearly Now . . . . 0
PoliticalProf posts as clear an explanation of what’s happening in the Middle East as you are likely to find.
Droning On 0
Stephen Colbert discusses robotic death raining from the sky.
Below the fold in case it autoplays.
Never-Ending Story 0
Andrew Bacevich thinks that more Mideast Whack-a-Mole is not the answer. A snippet.
The key point is this: Were the United States and its partners miraculously to succeed tomorrow in destroying the Islamic State and its leader, Abu Bakr Baghdadi, those conditions would still persist. As a consequence, another “Islamic State,” under another banner, inspired by a new leader, would almost certainly appear. And we’ll find ourselves right back where we are today. Indeed, Islamic State is itself a legacy organization, successor to the now defunct al-Qaida in Iraq.
He’s quite right, you know. Causes lead to effects. Fighting effects does not affect the causes.
War and Mongers of War 0
Steven M. notes that John McCain seems to want to bomb everyone.
War and Mongers of War 0
Tony Norman reminds us that war is not a video game. A nugget (emphasis added).
We want the killing done as antiseptically as possible and with a minimum of American casualties. In other words, we want another of those “magic” wars we never seem to get. They elude us no matter how much our leaders assure us that we’re entitled to conflicts with a minimum of fuss when they’re laying out the rationale for open-ended bombing campaigns. We don’t even have to know how to find on a map the countries we plan to bomb. All we need to bring to the table is fear — and the more of it, the better.
There is no such thing in war as a “surgical strike.”
Also see George Smith on fear.