Endless War category archive

George Smith. Read it.

Thom explains that war is not something that just happens over there, however much the mongers of war would have you believe that that’s the case.

Reg Henry reflects (emphasis added):

If only righteous violence could solve all problems, life would be much easier. But the dragon’s teeth keep being sowed and the violence keeps happening. You’d think we’d learn.

(snip)

But to blame this president (for Iraq–ed.) you must also blame his predecessor, He Who Must Not be Blamed (according to his apologists), for getting us into this sorry mess in the first place. Sooner or later this was bound to happen. From the moment of the U.S. invasion, the only uncertainty was the exact date of the eventual unraveling. Soon it will be Afghanistan’s turn.

Those who say we should stay in these countries have missed the point. A policy of never-ending occupation and war is not a feasible policy; it is an admission of policy failure.

Read the rest.

Noz:

I think Americans have a hard time accepting the fact that the U.S. military is not capable of solving most problems. Whenever something horrible happen, people say “we must do something”, which for some reason mostly seems to mean using the military to kill someone in another country. There is rarely any serious thought about whether such killing is likely to improve things over the long run. I think the record is fairly clear that the opposite is the case.

He’s quite correct, you know. Thinking that something must always be done leads to doing the wrong something more often than not.

Viet Nam veteran Rick Whalen, writing in the Bangor Daily News, remembers the past–another war based on another lie. A nugget:

Capt. John Herrick, in command of the two destroyers, sent messages that “freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonar operators may have accounted for the reports” of the attack. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara read these messages but failed to inform Johnson. It was later established this “attack” never happened.

On Aug. 7, 1964, the U.S. Congress, without being informed of Herrick’s recent messages, overwhelmingly passed what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving the president permission to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia without a declaration of war. This resolution was the basis for all of our military activities there. It was based on an incident that never happened.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of that attack that never happened — the beginning of a war based on a lie. Fifty years later, there’s much we can learn from our government’s breach of the people’s trust.

Follow the link to see what lessons he learned.

What Thoreau said.

Via Kos.

I have no interest whatsoever in Game of Thrones, which seems to have cast its spell over a good portion of the podcasters I listen to. I stopped paying extra for HBO 20 years ago and haven’t missed it.

Now comes Shaun Mullen to point out that you don’t need to pay for HBO; a Game of Thrones has been playing out in the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the perfidy of France and Britain towards the Arabs who, under the sponsorship of T. E. Lawrence, had allied themselves with them against the Ottomans. A nugget:

The diplomats had been negotiating on how to divvy up the spoils of the Ottoman Empire. The conclusion of World War I was still two and a half years away, but the end of Turkish hegemony in the region was a foregone conclusion and the superpower governments in London and Paris, which were kind of like the Westeros and Essos of the time, wanted to leave as little as possible to chance in fulfilling their imperialist desiderata, least of all to make good on vague promises made to the Arabs — and the legendary Lawrence of Arabia, the leading advocate of the Arab cause — for their own homeland as a reward for their assistance in crushing the Turks in the arid western expanses of their empire.

Subsequent episodes of this real-life Game of Thrones, minus scantily clad maidens and a dwarf named Tyrion, but with plenty of civil wars and bloodshed to go around, have been playing out for nearly 100 years beginning with the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, which set the artificial boundaries of colonial Iraq, Syria and Lebanon (and eventually the state of Israel) and provoked never ending cycles of ethnic strife, poverty, disenfranchisement, religious extremism and, of course, terrorism. Which brings us to the current episode — the disintegration of Iraq — where all that is on offer.

If you want to understand what’s happening in the Middle East–to have some context for today’s events–this is a good place to start.

Via AMERICAblog.

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The neocons and their symps, dupes, and fellow travelers who made policy for George the Worst*, upon what appears to be the final crumbling of their fever dream of American conquest in the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq, have resurfaced to call for yet more war.

Dick Polman is disgusted (as, indeed, must be any thinking person outside the Beltway-Wingnut Bubble).

So when the shameless necons and Bush amnesiacs and clueless trolls bleat about “Obama’s fault,” it’s like hearing a pyromaniac whine that the fire department didn’t bring enough hoses to his four-alarm blaze.

Do I have a magic elixir for the raging Iraqi fire? Nope. Nobody does. But here’s a fanciful idea: Let’s dispatch the dogs of war to Iraq, and compel them to clean up their mess. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, McCain and his fellow congressional hawks, Kristol and his fellow cheerleaders…they should all stay until they forge a solution. And if they argue for a new U.S war, young members of their own families should fight it.

Do please follow the link.

Image via Job’s Anger.
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*Was George the Worst a dupe or a symp? Inquiring minds want to know.

Dan Simpson contemplates the collapse of Iraq and argues persuasively that America not only cannot stop it, but has facilitated and exacerbated it through the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq. It’s a must-read.

The Iraq war, also known as “The War to Re-elect George W. Bush President,” not only left the country of 33 million severely damaged, but, worse, also left it with a government structure that simply does not work in terms of Iraq’s sectarian composition. More than that, America left Iraq with a situation that guarantees continuing fighting until it finds — or re-finds — a stable status quo.

He goes on to say that the least harmful thing we can do is to stay the hell out.

The violence there now must not be allowed to re-engage America in Iraq’s internal conflicts and how it balances its competing elements — Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. We have already done far too much damage to the Iraqis and to ourselves through our efforts to shape Iraq’s future.

In the warmonger’s world, more war for more lies for more lives is always the answer (warning: language).

Old men lie, young folks die.

And the old men keep right on lying.

Bloodthirsty narcissistic bastards.

Addendum:

George Smith notes the lust for war amongst those who will not have to fight:

As if it isn’t big enough already, you can observe how large elements in the media and sources at the Pentagon wish to relight the American war machine . . . .

More blood is always the solution for those who remain safely in the rear.

It’s all just smoke and mirrors.

Via Job’s Anger.

Dan Simpson explains supply and demand, but for one small error.

He’s got it backwards. This is not supply and demand, it’s demand and supply.

My impression of the growth of the U.S. military command for Africa, AFRICOM, created by President George W. Bush in 2008, is that its activities around the continent are a clear example of supply-driven actions — America pointlessly in quest of wars and enemies.

Read the rest.

Warning: Language. And outrage.