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The US Between Two Wars
The US stands at a historic crossroads, redeploying its combat troops out of Iraq and surging them in Afghanistan. But are they really leaving Iraq - or just rebranding the occupation? Why is Iraqi Lieutenant General Zibari requesting a decade-long US military presence? Meanwhile, in their other war, in Afghanistan, military escalation runs alongside political deterioration. Will Barack Obama's troop surge really offer any hope of winning in Afghanistan? Has the US realised that Western values cannot be forced through the barrel of a gun?
As the fiascos continue, surely Western governments should rethink war as a means of securing interests. And yet, war is being reinvented with the development of new deadly toys like the drone, allowing the privilege to fight freely and globally from the comfort of home base. Where will the US go next? The US' invasion and occupation of these two countries aimed to solidify its global leadership, and when it all started to go wrong, the election of Obama was meant to slow the US' decay and restore its credibility around the world. But two years into his presidency there have been no breakthroughs.
As the US licks its wounds, counts its losses, intensifies its secret wars and contemplates its next moves in the Muslim world, has its superpower status been eroded? Empire searches for the answers.
GUESTS
| Colonel Richard Kemp Former British commander in Afghanistan | |
| Christopher Dickey Middle East editor, Newsweek | |
| Alain Gresh Editor, Le Monde Diplomatique | |
| Seumas Milne Associate editor, The Guardian |
11 Comments so far
Show Allardent 1,you nailed it .This has been "world war three"and it is planned to be perpetual.It is resource hegemony by the global fascist elite.
peace
Turn a blind eye, pretend that war can be won, what ever that means, pour money and men and arms into Afghanistan and have them point guns at peoples heads and you can force them to accept anything for many years , 100 years if needed.
But does that mean when we stop pointing the guns they will be modern western thinking pals.
The beauty of a 100 year war is that most of the people who support it, will be dead before is concluded.And the legacy they will have left their successors will be , stay the course, 100 years from 2003 we will have won.
6 billion/month x 12 =72 billion x 100 =
7,200,,000,000,000 thats 7.2 quadrillion.
All our kids and grand kids with their 8 dollar an hour jobs can pay for it.
I fronted McDonalds $5.28, by handing the cashier a Ten dollar bill, plus 28¢.
The young, cashier was obviously confused, and said to me, “You gave me a Ten.”
After fiddling with the cash register computer for a while, she handed me back a Five, looking completely baffled by the transaction.
I wonder what $7,200,000,000,000,000 would mean to her.
I mean not to belittle this individual; you have no doubt experienced similar situations many times. I have. And, why should she have any idea of such a number as 7.2 quadrillion? Do you think our 'leaders' have any idea themselves?
I would suggest that a solid majority of Americans do not have any idea how a Million, differs from a Billion, differs from a Trillion . . . etc.
There does not seem to be any limits to our current stupidity with respect to use of military power to shoot ourselves in the foot, in the behind, and other parts of our collective anatomy. Destroying the world to save it is where we have devolved from Viet Nam.
I just finished watching the video and it turned out to be a remarkably well done piece with all the participants contributing incisive comments. I found the comments by Newsweek Middle East editor Christopher Dickey to be somewhat confusing as he initially seemed to express skepticism at the U.S. presence in Afghanistan while making what appeared to me to be a few bizarre comments such as claiming that an enduring military presence In Iraq does not somehow constitute an occupation in that country. He also believes that the United States will simply leave Afghanistan once, in his words, the Taliban were to bring the US the head of Osama bin Laden while conveniently neglecting to mention that the Taliban had agreed soon after the 9/11 attacks to indeed hand over bin Laden to GW Bush just as soon as the United States showed them proof of bin Laden's involvement in those attacks. The United States under Bush never provided that proof just as Obama has also never provided that proof to the Taliban.
Nonetheless, as Earthian has so trenchantly pointed out, one would be very hard pressed to find any discussion like this on the corporate media even by such liberals as Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. Thank goodness for the likes of Al Jazeera and its program Empire.
It's all rebranding PR..... Read "Packaging The Emir" in this link, paragraph 2.
http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html
"Instead of the Iraq War or the Afghanistan War, we need to start thinking of the Iraq Front, the Afghan Front, the Somalia front, the Yemen Front, etc"
Ardent,
Very good...
KUDOS to CD for supplying trenchant Al Jazeera Empire interview.....
Admiral Mullen let the cat out of the bag last week when he admitted the Federal deficit, which is what funds the Pentagon, is a threat to national security which means that the Pentagon is the threat to national security and this threat to national security is paid for by the American taxpayers.Mullen told the Treasury and the Federal Reserve that the economy has to improve and that the purpose of individual American taxpayers is to work to pay taxes to fund the Pentagon, which is actually funded with the Treasury bond proceeds for the deficit. Mullen declared that the deficit had to decrease, the funding that funds the Pentagon.This is a sure sign of a military dictatorship, when the Pentagon tells the USG what to do and why. In essence, Mullen is declaring the Federal deficit is a threat to national security while it is the deficit that funds the Pentagon meaning that funding the Pentagon is a threat to national security which the Pentagon wants to be endless, an endless threat to national security, a threat paid for with American tax monies. And we wonder why the Pentagon is the gang that can't shoot straight?