Endless War category archive

Dan Simpson looks back at 60 years of American interventionism–Indochina, the Middle East, Afghanistan, among others–and becomes profoundly depressed at the outcomes. A snippet:

And I have concluded that the U.S. role in former French Indochina — Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia — from roughly 1963 to 1975, was fairly destructive at that time and for the future. Our bombing and, in effect, occupation of parts of that area destroyed physical and societal infrastructure and left the region a wreck. Without taking the big leap off the end of the board, it seems to me that we are doing the same thing in the Middle East and Afghanistan now.

Some analysts argue that this is U.S. policy, that the United States deliberately busts up countries and regions to keep them susceptible to our influence and incapable of presenting problems for us — though I don’t know that I would agree. The proclaimed cause can change. It might be anti-communism, anti-terrorism or the promotion of democracy, but our armed aggression and the resulting broken, weakened countries is the same, for the most part.

Read it, and think.

Warning: Language.

The funnest Republican thing–mongering war.

Via Balloon Juice.

Excerpt:

Six years into his presidency . . ., this man still thinks he can peruade us through reasoned argument. Has he met us?

Video moved below the fold because it autoplays on some systems.

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Jeb “Oh God Please Not Another” Bush turns to the same stable of warmongers as his apparently (in Republican eyes) non-existent brother did so as to supplement his wisdom and perspicacity.

Let Shaun Mullen explain.

Thom explains why Frankenstein must pursue his own monster.

Your tax dollars at work war.

Via Job’s Anger.

Der Spiegel parses NATO’s kill list. A snippet (much more indescriminate death and destruction at the link):

The Afghan, who has been given the code name “Doody,” is a “mid-level commander” in the Taliban, according to a secret NATO list. . . .

The operations center identified “Doody” at 10:17 a.m. But visibility is poor and the helicopter is forced to circle another time. Then the gunner fires a “Hellfire” missile. But he has lost sight of the mullah during the maneuver, and the missile strikes a man and his child instead. The boy is killed instantly and the father is severely wounded. When the pilot realizes that the wrong man has been targeted, he fires 100 rounds at “Doody” with his 30-mm gun, critically injuring the mullah.

“Surgical strike” is a myth perpetuated by those who monger war and would have you believe that life is a video game.

In real life, there is no such thing.

Old men lie. Young folks die.

Thom and Vincent Bugliosi consider how President George the Worst’s Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq fathered ISIS.

Dick Polman on the recent belated conviction of a few of Blackwater’s mercs:

What a perfect metaphor for the Bush occupation, which reaped the whirlwind we’re experiencing today. First he staged a needless invasion; then, when it became clear that he needed way more troops than his neoconservative dreamers envisioned, he hired scads of private contractors (Blackwater being a prime beneficiary) to fill the breach. Blackwater CEO Erik Prince hailed from a well-connected, politically-wired Republican family. Before Bush took office, his firm had garnered less than $1 million in federal contracts; after Bush took office, his firm tallied more than $1 billion.

As Polman points out, there’s a lot more guilt to go around.

Via Funny or Die.

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:

Between the establishment of the modern Iraqi state in 1921 and for over 80 years, “the default setting [in Iraq] was coexistence”. Haddad argues that “Post-2003 Iraq … identity politics have been the norm rather than an anomaly because they’re part of the system by design.”

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.