Fredrick deBoer comments on the US waging perpetual war.
We’re going to war again. We’re going to war in Iraq again. And we’re going with no better idea of how to win or when to get out or what victory could mean than the last time. The media is beating the drum again. And the same set of characters– the exact same people– who were so terribly wrong last time are going on TV to be wrong again.
Views like mine, in the world of American foreign policy, are considered extreme. This is because I believe that peace is preferable to war, that the last half-century of American warmaking has in the main been a series of disasters, and that this country’s political class has become so bent on war in the face of any and all challenges that those we call doves are just quieter hawks. I can envision no plausible scenario in which this country stops its endless projection of military force. Not in my lifetime. I suppose I hope only that people in the media will someday be honest and say: we are bent on war, and our media is bent on war, and there is no such thing as an anti-war voice in our politics or media, and we will go to war again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
We might “win,” this time. We will certainly destroy ISIS if we set our minds to it. And we will leave behind another failed state, whether after a year or ten, and then that failed state will do what failed states do, and we will go back again. But every time a little weaker, a little more vulnerable, until someday at last, the next war is the one that leads to our own destruction.
Cross-posted from The Sensible Center
http://thesensiblecentercom.blogspot.com/2014/09/deboer-on-perpetual-war.html
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I certainly agree with this opinion. I fear that Obama has succumbed to the constant yabber of “weakness” and “no leadership” into action for the sake of action. My main hope that he is cynical enough to concoct a “wag the dog” operation to quiet those who are demanding more.
My local radio station is frequently making 9/11 memorial announcements today, and my state governor has ordered the flag to fly at half staff. Why do we have to keep picking at this scab? By the standards of recent world history, this attack was not in the top 25 in destructiveness. I have the sense that we are being manipulated by our emotions, and I am concerned about the motives of the manipulators.
Immediately south of the US, there is a struggle between the law and several gangs of narcotraficante cartels. Does ISIS(L) pose a bigger threat than los Zetas?
When the west restricted Japanese access to the oil of Brunei, Japan responded with military means. In my imagination, there is a world in another dimension where they decided to see how pure hard work would work leading to Japan being one of the great economies of the world without any bloodshed. Is war the only answer to all challenges facing our country? An aggressive military enforcement of our will can lead to overextension. Ireland, Israel, and India are places where the Union Jack does not fly; quite a change from 100 years ago.
Not to worry, Mars, his heart may not be in what you say he has been pushed into. Wag the dog will be good for the Dems on election day and at endless fund raisers among the one- percenters and the ordinary guys and union loyalists. Win, win.
The Reps can only stand with their mouths agape.
All the evidence points to this being the case. We should at least be honest about it.
True, true ….