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Obama and His (Virtual) Virtuous War
I expected to be disappointed by President Barack Obama's West Point address. During the campaign he constantly reminded us that this war had been thrust upon us. Like World War II, it would define us.
Unfortunately, even after months of reflection Obama's speech added little more to his case than catchy metaphors and inconsistent analysis, with spick-and-span cadets as props.
Employing the language of foreign policy realism, Obama informed his audience that the Taliban constituted a threat to our national interest. He then promised a carefully delimited military response sufficient to get the job done but cost effective enough not to threaten domestic priorities.
Obama's hard-nosed realism invites careful scrutiny. College international relations texts generally point out that realism in international relations has a distinguished pedigree going back to Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian Wars." No sentimentalist, the Greek historian portrayed a world in which war would play a continuing role. Thucydides, however, conveyed another sensitivity lost to many of today's "realists" and completely absent in Obama's speech. Thucydides highlighted the contingencies in war, the misleading information on which its protagonists depended. His sense of the tragic would challenge Obama's hubristic notion that war could be nicely calibrated in numbers of troop commitment and length of stay.
Obama seems overawed by a Pentagon brass whose rhetoric of war, replete with references to surgical strikes and smart bombs, only furthers such hubris.
Even if realism is to be one's guide, shouldn't dangers and stakes be specified by clear analysis and closely examined factual claims? We are told that Afghanistan was the source of the 9-11 attacks and that it remains the "epicenter" of Islamic extremism. "Epicenter" is a powerful metaphor. Obama conjures up a terrifying vision of an Afghanistan-centered earthquake or tsunami rapidly spreading to engulf the innocent.
Yet 9-11 was carried out mostly by Saudis whose logistical support came primarily from Islamic extremists in Germany. Intelligence agencies throughout the world increasingly believe that al-Qaida itself is a dispersed, loosely knit collection. Hardly the sort of entity where chopping off the head ends the danger. Ironically, Obama himself seems to acknowledge this point, though not its implications for an Afghanistan escalation, with a comment late in his speech about the need for supple and dispersed intelligence.
If al-Qaida is the source of evil in the world, we should not only encourage cooperative intelligence with other nations, but also strive to understand its motives. As Nir Rosen, fellow at the New York University School of Law and Security, points out, Islamic extremists gain converts not by denouncing our freedoms but rather by highlighting our one-sided approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and India and Pakistan's ongoing conflict over Kashmir.
Since intelligence reports also suggest that al-Qaida is now more concentrated in Pakistan than Afghanistan and instability in a nuclear-armed Pakistan a much larger regional and world threat, action on these issues is imperative.
A broader look at the U.S. moral posture in the world is just what Obama's rhetoric sidesteps. Near the conclusion of the speech a president who had spoken of our pursuit of hard national interest went on to celebrate the idealism that has purportedly always motivated U.S. foreign policy:
"For unlike the great powers of old, we have not sought world domination. Our union was founded in resistance to oppression. We do not seek to occupy other nations."
As historian Andrew Bacevich points out, however, this is "the way we prefer to see ourselves and, therefore, the narrative that we use to justify all that we do in the world. It is really telling that this president, whose background is quite different [from prior presidents], would embrace that narrative so uncritically. [T]hat is indicative of the extent to which there is going to be any change in Washington."
Months ago, this president hinted at the limits of our celebratory narrative when he admitted our role in overthrowing Iran's democratic government in the '50s. Nonetheless, the simplistic narrative of good versus evil combined inconsistently with a shallow realpolitik and inordinate confidence in the efficacy of military continues unabated in D.C. That these notions hold such sway over even a president who likely harbors inner doubts about this D.C. consensus is doubly tragic for him and for us.
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Show AllExcellent article. As long as the United States foolishly refuses to examine why al-Qaida continues to fight against the U.S. [such as the U.S. military presence in the Middle East and its allegiance to Israel and Israel's oppressive role vis a vis Palestine and Lebanon], then these terrorists will have absolutely no trouble attracting recruits to their cause. One has to wonder if Obama, like Bush did, believes that these terrorists hate America supposedly because of its freedoms or is it because Obama believes that the Pentagon is the fair-haired child who can do no wrong and whose insatiable desire for more war must always be fed? Yet the mainstream media refuses to ask this important question: Why motivates the terrorists to fight against the United States?
Erroll 9:18 --- There has also been a small occurrence in Iraq where almost a million people died due to USA technical errors.
I also heard of these unevolved people in Afghanistan who sometimes lose their tempers when 100 or so of their neighbors are slaughtered by USA patriots with smart bombs.
I agree with what you are saying, but detest your adoption of our Orwellian news-speak.
Terrorist? Please have a look at the FBI definition of terrorism. Then see if the USA fits the definition perfectly. And if you come to see that we are by far the biggest terrorists, then please stop using the word to describe those who are the victims of terrorist drone bombings and who are attempting to fight back against foreign invaders.
Glenn Ford
You and I and, I assume, most of the other commenters on this site understand the reason why terrorists groups are lashing out against the United States and other Western countries. But as I attempted to inquire in my last mangled sentence in my previous comment, why is the mainstream media not raising this question to its audience?
Braithwa842
I find your argument to be somewhat bizarre. For some inexplicable reason you seem to think that I do not believe that the United States is engaging in terrorists acts when I would have thought that my earlier comment would have demonstrated that to be a fallacious assumption to make. You then attempt to apparently state that I somehow believe that the victims of U.S. drone attacks [you probably would also include the victims of U.S. air attacks in Afghanistan] are terrorists when, in point of fact, I said no such thing. As I have said numerous times on articles on Common Dreams, those people who have been the recipients of those drone and air attacks have been innocent children and grandmothers. You say that they have been "attempting to fight back against foreign invaders." I believe that you are wrong about that. I believe, as I have stated, that when the U.S. bombed and killed them, that those Afghans and Pakistanis, as numerous studies have shown, were not part of a terrorist organization but were instead innocent civilians. These studies have consistently revealed that the people who have been killed at these wedding parties and funeral marches have overwhelmingly been ordinary people whom the U.S. ending up killing because they erroneously and stupidly believed that they were terrorists.
Wikipidia states that terrorists create violent acts which are intended to instill fear which is driven by an ideological goal or to create some type of social solidarity between peoples whereas the U.S. instills terror in order to further its own nefarious ends which can also, I believe, be an ideological goal [although rarely stated] and that would be, in the case of Iraq, to control their oil and with Afghanistan, to protect a proposed pipeline in that country.
I think that your attack against me is way off base because, as I had attempted to explain, apparently to little avail, the nomenclature that is applied to those who are striking out against the United States should matter much less than the reasons why they are engaged in these acts.
The USA has been occupying many nations for over 200 years, the indigenous nations.
exactly.
and people elsewhere NEVER had any quarrels with Americans UNTIL america meddled in their affairs and regions to EXPLOIT them and their lands.
as an afghani farmer said in an interview , which one could be certain is the wisdom of those afghanis who have met with thousands of years of foreign meddlers (these pashtuns, incidentally , are the very descendants of the Mongols from centuries ago , of Kublai Khan) -
"The americans think that we are stupid...but we know they are here not because they want to help us...but because they want to use us and our land".
It seems the author of every one of these articles refers in some manner to the intelligence of Barack Obama.
I happen to think he is very intelligent. So much so that these Policy decisions can not be due to poor judgement. He knows as well as I do and the bulk of the readers here do the consequences of expanding war in that region.
He knows as well as everyone else involved in the decision making process that Al Qaeda has virtually no prescence in Afghanistan. He knows these decisions will make matters worse and not better and that they will make America less safe and not more so.
Yet he persists in pursuing the same course.
This can only be because his goals are not the ones he states.
He needs to maintain the fiction of the USA as a force for good, the militaries sent to bomb these nations and kill its people are there defending freedom and liberty.
As long as he can keep the masses believing such tripe wherein those that question 9/11 are dismissed as terrorists and where those who question the actions of the Military as "Un-patriotic" his real goals and that of those behind him can be pursued with impunity.
The reason the mainstream media refuses to ask the questions behind what motivates the so called "terrorists"? It not because they are not clever enough to already KNOW what the answer is. It is because they are part of the same MIC that acts to ensure the people do not ever KNOW the real reasons.
-"This can only be because his goals are not the ones he states."
This is so bleedingly obvious to many people outside the US, it is hilarious to listen to Americans agonize over Obama's stool samples, trying to descern the hidden logic behind the hiring of mercenaries, giving money to the banks, stalling healthcare, etc.
But their "news" people did give the government a grilling over those white house party crashers! Now that is what is important! :)
Indeed, B.O.'s goals are unknown, and I tire of the inclusion in such articles as this of little presumptions of Obama's good intentions, lofty principles, solid moral code, etc.: "a president who likely harbors inner doubts about this D.C. consensus".
We have absolutely no idea what's in his head and heart. We only know about people by their actions. B.O. continues the killing, torture, posturing, spying, mismanagament of the nation's human and natural resources, injustice past and present, and every bad thing we have become. The hubris and hegemony continues. As I suspected of various previous presidents, I am sorry to conclude that Obama is either a coward or a criminal.
Nanoo
While it may be tragic for him and us, it will be far worse than that for the people in the way of the military and its directives. Do you feel more safe and secure now? I don't.
the article below -- shows and reveals that this american obsession with showing patriotism -- as with "support the troops" = among the REST of the population that does NOT have to shoulder the burden of being the killing machines and their families suffering as a result - while embarking on imperial adventures -
that americans REALLy are CALLOUS and hypocritical people.
=
they , imo, are generally , JUST LIKE DICK CHENEY , BARACK OBAMA, etc....
ARMCHAIR WARRIORS who , from the safety of "america" between two vast oceans, KNOW that
their OWN overdramatization and sentimenatality about "being attacked" on 9/11 or otherwise -
VASTLY overstates the real dangers to them from foreigners thousands of miles away - who, to begin with, NEVER had any quarrels with AMERICA UNTIL america MEDDLED in the affairs of other nations.
and YET these , imo, vast majority of americans PRETEND as if they are REALLY patriotic and care about "our troops" so long as
it's Not THEMSELVES or their loved ones that have to pay the price in lives and destroyed futures.
such hypocrites. just like Dick Cheney with "i have other priorities" while glorifying "our troops" .
and americans' "other priorities" are WHAT? exactly?
why, it's :
SHOPPING of course, taking care of "my apartment and house", "my garden", my "car", my "job", my "appointments".......
AS IF the soldiers that they SEND TO WAR to KILL and DIE and BE DESTROYED - as if the families of these poor souls have NO lives of THEIR OWN, appointments of THEIR own, FUTURES of their own to also have as "priorities"
RATHER than to shoulder the burden of america's imperial wars - so that the REST of america can SHOUT and PRETEND that "we support the troops"
while wallowing in their own "safety" and pretending they CARE!
==================
The New York Times
December 8, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
A Fearful Price
By BOB HERBERT
I spoke recently with a student at Columbia who was enthusiastic about the escalation of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He argued that a full-blown counterinsurgency effort, which would likely take many years and cost many lives, was the only way to truly win the war.
He was a very bright young man: thoughtful and eager and polite. I asked him if he had any plans to join the military and help make this grand mission a success. He said no.
There was an article in The Times on Monday about a new study showing that the eight years of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan were taking an emotional toll on the children of service members and that the difficulties increased the longer parents were deployed.
There is no way that the findings of this study should be a surprise to anyone. It just confirms that the children of those being sent into combat are among that tiny percentage of the population that is unfairly shouldering the entire burden of these wars.
The idea that fewer than 1 percent of Americans are being called on to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq and that we’re sending them into combat again and again and again — for three tours, four tours, five tours, six tours — is obscene. All decent people should object.
We already knew that in addition to the many thousands who have been killed or physically wounded, hundreds of thousands have returned with very serious psychological wounds: deep depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and so on. Other problems are also widespread: alcohol and drug abuse, family strife, homelessness.
The new study, by the RAND Corporation, was published in the journal Pediatrics. The children surveyed were found to have higher levels of emotional difficulties than their peers in the general population.
According to the study:
“Older youth and girls of all ages reported significantly more school, family and peer-related difficulties with parental deployment. Length of parental deployment and poorer non-deployed caregiver mental health were significantly associated with a greater number of challenges for children, both during deployment and deployed parent reintegration.”
The air is filled with obsessive self-satisfied rhetoric about supporting the troops, giving them everything they need and not letting them down. But that rhetoric is as hollow as a jazzman’s drum because the overwhelming majority of Americans have no desire at all to share in the sacrifices that the service members and their families are making. Most Americans do not want to serve in the wars, do not want to give up their precious time to do volunteer work that would aid the nation’s warriors and their families, do not even want to fork over the taxes that are needed to pay for the wars.
To say that this is a national disgrace is to wallow in the shallowest understatement. The nation will always give lip-service to support for the troops, but for the most part Americans do not really care about the men and women we so blithely ship off to war, and the families they leave behind.
The National Military Family Association, which commissioned the RAND study, has poignant comments from the children of military personnel on its Web site.
You can tell immediately how much more real the wars are to those youngsters than to most Americans:
“I hope it’s not him on the news getting hurt.”
“Most of my grades dropped because I was thinking about my dad, because my dad’s more important than school.”
“Mom will be in her room and we hear her crying.”
The reason it is so easy for the U.S. to declare wars, and to continue fighting year after year after year, is because so few Americans feel the actual pain of those wars. We’ve been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan longer than we fought in World Wars I and II combined. If voters had to choose right now between instituting a draft or exiting Afghanistan and Iraq, the troops would be out of those two countries in a heartbeat.
I don’t think our current way of waging war, which is pretty easy-breezy for most citizens, is what the architects of America had in mind. Here’s George Washington’s view, for example: “It must be laid down as a primary position and the basis of our system, that every citizen who enjoys the protection of a free government owes not only a proportion of his property, but even his personal service to the defense of it.”
What we are doing is indefensible and will ultimately exact a fearful price, and there will be absolutely no way for the U.S. to avoid paying it.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
teddy 11:23 ------- Everyone is responsible for their own actions.
If someone enlists to be a trigger puller for imperialism they should expect to suffer the naturally dire consequences. They are murder for hire.
I know the old financially desperate people argument. When I hear of people starving to death because they did not enlist then I will think those people were truely financially desperate but I will also bless them for taking the morally high ground.
That said, an orgnization and fund should be created to help poor people not enlist as imperial death squad members.
"Most Americans do not want to serve in the wars, do not want to give up their precious time to do volunteer work that would aid the nation’s warriors and their families, do not even want to fork over the taxes that are needed to pay for the wars.
To say that this is a national disgrace is to wallow in the shallowest understatement. The nation will always give lip-service to support for the troops, but for the most part Americans do not really care about the men and women we so blithely ship off to war, and the families they leave behind."
Is this supposed to guilt us into paying for the wars? This doesn't sound like Bob Herbert, unless he is implying that if we are not willing to do as above then America shouldn't be in the wars at all, in which case he is addressing the warmongers.
It's the people who think America should be in these wars and drag us all into it with them who ought to bear the burden, not the ones who think it's sin.
If some Americans do not support the wars, do not believe they are lawful or moral and should be ended, then they truly support the troops. Joining in the war effort and funding it to enable it to go on is contradictory.
What is missing though is the concerted and unified actions of conscientious objectors to exercise the duty to fight for the wars' end until the rest of the country must take notice.
My town has held a number of peace rallies with large enthusiastic numbers in attendance who agree on principles but don't know how to manifest their ideas into practice other than demonstrating. Maybe we could brainstorm such strategies online.
For instance have another such local assembly and demand that the town government and state reps attend, and start the talks and plans and demand that the local and state government begin to censure the federal government, even if it means federal funds being cut off. It's a two=way street, not a one-way street. Pressure from the bottom up in other words. We need to start building and sharing successes in undoing the harm the oligarchy is doing in our name.
I think a lot of people are ready and willing to act but don't have a clear focused strategy. For years we've been blogging on strategies and we should compile all the wisdom contained in them and start to fine tune and use them.
I for one as personal rule and principle will never participate in violence against anyone, however, should that ever become a movement's chosen option as exemplified in history.
The certainty in which these experts project Taliban forces as about 25,000 as though this were a confrontation between existing organized military forces is problematic. I think they already know that this is not what happens in guerilla war. The assumption that Taliban forces are under unified control and can be diverted from Pakistan to Aphganistan by provoking the fight there is a daydream in my opinion. The idea that Pakistan will be our ally in a pincer like attack on the Taliban is very questionable--Did anyone else see Charlie Wilson's War.
The first sign that this expert military intellegence is falling apart will be when the Taliban start engaging us in increasing numbers despite our withering firepower, despite the fact that like Viet Nam we will be winning the battles when using body counts but losing the war in terms of any popular support. If it goes that far we will see the inability of Karsia forces to join the fight. Will we get out then or will all the previous calculations go out the window and new rationales to continue the war take hold? I think I already know the answer. Maybe this war will be unpopular and create some political blow back. If so then the next thing to happen will be Republicans who will start telling us they have a secret plan to end the war.
I hope they have a towel handy in Stockholm, so Obama can wipe the blood from his hands before he accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
They failed to have one for Henry Kissinger.
"We do not seek to occupy other nations".This quote from Obama, sounds like it was written by one of Bush's speechwriters. What a horrible lie! What has this government done for the last 200 years but occupy other nations either economically or militarily both overtly and covertly! This country was originally occupied by an estimated 50 million indigeneous peoples that were destoyed by American hegemony and it has never stopped since! Shame on you Obomba!
For Uncle 'Bomb's dupes, the term calibrated should be replaced with his own more precise, MEATERED!
I think he is President Too Clever by Half Measures.
Obushma is just another war criminal President who should be impeached.
"Obama's hard-nosed realism invites careful scrutiny."
The Sun King, His Excellency, The Great Obama, does not deal in "hard-nosed realism". His nose is capable of smelling only three things:
1) Lies
2) Bullshit
3) Reelection
Wow! I rarely think of SHORTER ways to express ideas.
But with all due respect, I would reverse the order of your attributes and whittle down the first two, thusly:
1) Reelection
2) $$$$$$$$$$
· Yr Obd't Servant
Thucydides' account of Athens' failed expedition to Sicily has never been surpassed as a lesson in unpredictability once the dogs of war are let loose.
Sec. of War, Mr. Gates now says that he and Pres. Obama want to "win" in Afghanistan. The only way that you "win" in a hostile military occupation is by committing genocide. It that the new plan of Gates and Obama? To murder millions of Afghans so that US oil companies can build pipelines in that benighted country. We should get out now. Haven't we visited enough misery on them since Reagan and the CIA interfered in the early 1980s...
to oval 12345678 ; i want anyone to correct me if i'm wrong. but didn't the us back the taliban and the mujhadeen in the 1980's, giving them road bombs to blow up soviet tanks and trucks and stinger missles to blow up russian helicopters? then the people who sided with the russians were the northern alliance. am i right about that? now the northern alliance is on our side, as they were the ones who captured john walker lind, of american taliban infamy. let me know where karzai is in all this. is he a tajik, uzbek, turkomen, or pushtan? did he help fight the russains, or did he collaborate with them? now, let me tell you something that doesn't make the mainstream media. carter is the one who instigated the 1979 war. his nsa brzenski has admitted to urging jihadists to attack those godless soviets through border raids against villages in the southernmost republics of the soviet union. those raids provoked the soviet invasion of afghanistan exactly 30 years ago this month. following the soviet invasion, of course, carter, who provoked it, said the soviet move caused the usa its "gravest crisis since ww2", a statement that was a callous exaggeration, given berlin, cuba, and the 1973 yom kippor war. then, carter unilaterally forbade our 1980 olympic team from going to moscow, knowing full well that his actions had precipitated the crisis. as brzezinski has said, it was more important to bring down a superpower than to worry about an upsurge is islamic fundamentalism. tell that to the ghosts of the twin towers!
Yuletide Joy ePie December 8th, 2009
Do them.... for all it’s worth
for it’s Yuletide joy
bring on ‘little boy’
or a ‘fat man’ with gold sac; ‘Say hoy’
Give me a bang for every buck
that’s not into random luck
a faceless f**k
a nine iron: ‘duck’
A trillion big bang cluster
of dew drops in the fog
perfectly rounded
all porky and flu bounded.
A war without the dog
a wag without a cog
Just tuck me in the spritz
suck me while I log into
the freed man night post
all crispy and cool
longing for pursuit
diced dogma
a flush of carrots
and cherubs singing;
‘Hark the herald devils bling’..
Sing the song of wingless worth
Sing Blitzen
Sing bomber without a berth.
Good tidings to all
may you squirt zipless
lipless nothings
changeless and choice less
president Brand O ...voice less;
the long necked squirt
another dither shirt
framing bangs for every buck
Lady Lola,.. jack the frost
hoary lies in waiting..
the big bang cluster f**k
Merry Christmas
zipless
Although he is eqasily more impressive than the recent occupants of the White House, Obama has never moved me. I felt that his criticism of the Iraq war, during the election campaign, was purely opportunistic. He complained of "techical errors"; he never came out and denounced the war as a crime against humanity. Then again, his willingness to trumpet war in Afghanistan was also a sign that he had no real problems with US empire. I remember he also proposed to spread the war to Pakistan, if the "need" arose. This policy proposal has come to pass: the US military is now engaged in killing many innocent Pakistanis, and when the "terrorists" move on to their next refuge, one can suppose that President Obama will proclaim the need to make war on them there. Thus does the war on terror become the war against the South, where resides the "wretched of the earth," as Fanon called them. I recall saying to friends of mine who were Obama supporters that their man would have his finest hour while running for the presidency--being only a candidate would allow him to the play the role of a visionary ("the audacity of hope" and all that bosh!) But as soon as he became president Obama would become "realistic," meaning he would sell out his progressive supporters and hide behind the defense that politics is all about the art of the practical and the truly possible. Of course, certain things are only impossible when one consciously chooses not to do them. If Obama really wanted to end the Wars, he could simply do it. Hell, he's the President and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. For all his vaunted intelligence, Obama is a moral weakling and perhaps a simple barbarian (just like the moron George Bush). If Obama had any moral courage he would utter the following words to the American people: "My Fellow Americans, after nearly a decade of war in West/Central Asia we have only suceeded in sowing the seeds of more hatred and bloodshed. We have inflicted untold sufferings on millions, and we have sacrificed the young lives of many soldiers. Today I say ENOUGH! I am ordering the immediate withdrawal of all American military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. Tomorrow we begin work on the daunting task of reconstructing both countries. Our true security lies in this direction. Justice requires us to give up on violence and make recompense for the wrongs we have done." Being a typical ambitious American politician (and therefore, a servant of empire),Obama hasn't got in him to say these words; it's easier for him to continue a cruel and stupid war. Like LBJ who escalated Vietnam when he privately knew better, Obama has made his bed and he will now have to lie in it. It's tragic that thousands will die because of the vanity of one man...
Okay, which is funnier (or more embarassing--depending on your point of view)--Obama accepting the Nobel Peace Prize after escalatig the AFPAK war--or the Nobel committee giving Obama the same award they gave to the likes of Albert Schweitzer and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?
By the way, there were either 6 or 7 years when no peace prize was awarded because no suitable candidate could be found. If the audience had any moxie they would laugh him off the stage when he gives his acceptance lecture.
Poet
Over and over, we hear the same bemusement from liberal writers. And their analysis, as the one above, is often devastatingly accurate. But how rarely do they examine the material motivations for this deception, preferring psychological explanations. As in this quote: "...this is 'the way we prefer to see ourselves and, therefore, the narrative that we use to justify all that we do in the world.'"
The problem is that such articles usually end, as does this one, utterly devoid of any answer as to why anyone would pursue such an obviously self-destructive course, no matter what one might say about the hypocrisy of his rhetorical pose. We are left with a sense of impotent frustration, a sense of powerlessness in the face of irrational self-immolation.
And, in a way, that's just what defines liberalism - the inability to ask the decisive question and seek a genuine answer to it.
What liberals don't seem to understand is that the goal of the war against Afghanistan and Pakistan is not to create "stability" - it is to create sufficient numbers of enemies so that we can perpetuate war and the profits that ensue from it.
In the words of George Orwell: "The war is not supposed to be winnable, it is supposed to be continuous...all for the hierarchy of society...The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent..it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War… is now a purely internal affair."
The purpose of war in Afghanistan is to maintain a permanent state of war. This state is necessary for the national security apparatus to flourish, as well as to ensure the subjection of the majority. Obama, the smiling liberal, is well-chosen as executor of this totalitarian strategy because he can pull off the crime while keeping his progressive credentials intact. Liberals wish to live in the illusion that we are "resistors of oppression" "who never seek to occupy other countries." How noble are we compared to our manufactured "enemies".
A secondary goal of the war is the control of Central Asian energy resources in a game the U.S. cannot afford to cede to the Russians and Chinese. But principally, war in Afghanistan helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. Liberals play an essential role in the maintenance of this militaristic climate through the proliferation of their illusions about "democracy" which mask the realities of power. That is their role and in that they serve the security state well.