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The Long War: Year Ten
Lost in the Desert with the GPS on the Fritz
In January 1863, President Abraham Lincoln’s charge to a newly-appointed commanding general was simplicity itself: “give us victories.” President Barack Obama’s tacit charge to his generals amounts to this: give us conditions permitting a dignified withdrawal. A pithy quote in Bob Woodward’s new book captures the essence of an emerging Obama Doctrine: “hand it off and get out.”
Getting into a war is generally a piece of cake. Getting out tends to be another matter altogether -- especially when the commander-in-chief and his commanders in the field disagree on the advisability of doing so.
Happy Anniversary, America. Nine years ago today -- on October 7, 2001 -- a series of U.S. air strikes against targets across Afghanistan launched the opening campaign of what has since become the nation’s longest war. Three thousand two hundred and eighty five days later the fight to determine Afghanistan’s future continues. At least in part, “Operation Enduring Freedom” has lived up to its name: it has certainly proven to be enduring.
As the conflict formerly known as the Global War on Terror enters its tenth year, Americans are entitled to pose this question: When, where, and how will the war end? Bluntly, are we almost there yet?
Of course, with the passage of time, where “there” is has become increasingly difficult to discern. Baghdad turned out not to be Berlin and Kandahar is surely not Tokyo. Don’t look for CNN to be televising a surrender ceremony anytime soon.
This much we know: an enterprise that began in Afghanistan but soon after focused on Iraq has now shifted back -- again -- to Afghanistan. Whether the swings of this pendulum signify progress toward some final objective is anyone’s guess.
To measure progress during wartime, Americans once employed pins and maps. Plotting the conflict triggered by 9/11 will no doubt improve your knowledge of world geography, but it won’t tell you anything about where this war is headed.
Where, then, have nine years of fighting left us? Chastened, but not necessarily enlightened.
Just over a decade ago, the now-forgotten Kosovo campaign seemingly offered a template for a new American way of war. It was a decision gained without suffering a single American fatality. Kosovo turned out, however, to be a one-off event. No doubt the United States military was then (and remains today) unbeatable in traditional terms. Yet, after 9/11, Washington committed that military to an endeavor that it manifestly cannot win.
Rather than probing the implications of this fact -- relying on the force of arms to eliminate terrorism is a fool’s errand -- two administrations have doggedly prolonged the war even as they quietly ratcheted down expectations of what it might accomplish.
In officially ending the U.S. combat role in Iraq earlier this year -- a happy day if there ever was one -- President Obama refrained from proclaiming “mission accomplished.” As well he might: as U.S. troops depart Iraq, insurgents remain active and in the field. Instead of declaring victory, the president simply urged Americans to turn the page. With remarkable alacrity, most of us seem to have complied.
Perhaps more surprisingly, today’s military leaders have themselves abandoned the notion that winning battles wins wars, once the very foundation of their profession. Warriors of an earlier day insisted: “There is no substitute for victory.” Warriors in the Age of David Petraeus embrace an altogether different motto: “There is no military solution.”
Here is Brigadier General H. R. McMaster, one of the Army’s rising stars, summarizing the latest in advanced military thinking: “Simply fighting and winning a series of interconnected battles in a well developed campaign does not automatically deliver the achievement of war aims.” Winning as such is out. Persevering is in.
So an officer corps once intent above all on avoiding protracted wars now specializes in quagmires. Campaigns don’t really end. At best, they peter out.
Formerly trained to kill people and break things, American soldiers now attend to winning hearts and minds, while moonlighting in assassination. The politically correct term for this is "counterinsurgency."
Now, assigning combat soldiers the task of nation-building in, say, Mesopotamia is akin to hiring a crew of lumberjacks to build a house in suburbia. What astonishes is not that the result falls short of perfection, but that any part of the job gets done at all.
Yet by simultaneously adopting the practice of “targeted killing,” the home builders do double-duty as home wreckers. For American assassins, the weapon of choice is not the sniper rifle or the shiv, but missile-carrying pilotless aircraft controlled from bases in Nevada and elsewhere thousands of miles from the battlefield -- the ultimate expression of an American desire to wage war without getting our hands dirty.
In practice, however, killing the guilty from afar not infrequently entails killing innocents as well. So actions undertaken to deplete the ranks of jihadists as far afield as Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia unwittingly ensure the recruitment of replacements, guaranteeing a never-ending supply of hardened hearts to soften.
No wonder the campaigns launched since 9/11 drag on and on. General Petraeus himself has spelled out the implications: “This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids' lives.” Obama may want to “get out.” His generals are inclined to stay the course.
Taking longer to achieve less than we initially intended is also costing far more than anyone ever imagined. Back in 2003, White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey suggested that invading Iraq might run up a tab of as much as $200 billion -- a seemingly astronomical sum. Although Lindsey soon found himself out of a job as a result, he turned out to be a piker. The bill for our post-9/11 wars already exceeds a trillion dollars, all of it piled atop our mushrooming national debt. Helped in no small measure by Obama's war policies, the meter is still running.
So are we almost there yet? Not even. The truth is we’re lost in the desert, careening down an unmarked road, odometer busted, GPS on the fritz, and fuel gauge hovering just above E. Washington can only hope that the American people, napping in the backseat, won’t notice.
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Show AllA suggestion to Mr. Bacevich: the U.S. military is not fighting a war to win (as he himself suggested, one cannot wage war against a technique or a method, i.e., terrorism), but it is occupying territories first and foremost and, in so doing, it has to fight here and there.
Not only are we American people NOT NAPPING in the back seat, we want OUT OF THE CAR!!!! Let's get with it, Obama!!!!!
FrankS...
I really hope with all my heart that YOU are right and I am wrong about americans "NOT NAPPING" --but that they DO want OUT of the warlike state.
I hope, desperately that you are RIGHT and I am wrong...
"We are at war with Eurasia. We've always been at war with Eurasia."
"We are at war with Afghanistan. We've always been at war with Afghanistan."
"War is peace"
“I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.” — George W. Bush
"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that even, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death."
"We had no domestic attacks under Bush; We've had one under Obama" - Rudy Giuliani
"In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist."
In the last GOP presidential debate, when asked if any of them did NOT believe in Evolution,
Senator Sam Brownback, Governor Mike Huckabee and Representative Tom Tancredo raised their hands...
Newspeak
Texting
Orwell was quite the prophet. It appears the only thing he got wrong was the year, 1984. We can now look back on that year almost as an age of innocence.
"Orwell was quite the prophet. It appears the only thing he got wrong was the year, 1984. We can now look back on that year almost as an age of innocence."
Reagan was president in 1984. How fitting.
The only thing Orwell was wrong about in 1984 was not the date, he had that at least approximately right.
He did not forsee that there would be no need for Big Brother to watch us so much as we were too busy watching it.
"......there would be no need for Big Brother to watch us so much as we were too busy watching it." --- HERDPOISONING
=======================
NOW THAT is a statement as a stroke of Genius!! absolutely JAWdropping!!
it's the flipside of ORWELL's own perception that he would have wished HE saw. ....and might have put:
"BIG BROTHER IS US".
amazing vision you have there! i am floored!
A couple of points. Bacevich writes that the Kosovo campaign "was a decision gained without suffering a single American fatality." What he inexplicably neglects to mention is that Clinton unleashed a reign of terror by bombing that area for 75 days resulting in the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of civilians. Are the deaths of those people not worth weeping over? Or should they not be mourned because their nationality is not American?
Bacevich also notes that the "mission" in Iraq is not finished because "insurgents remain active in the field". During World War II those resisting against the Germans were labeled not as insurgents but as being freedom fighters. Should not the Iraqis and the Afghans also be referred to in that same way since they are fighting against the U.S. military in the hopes of also being liberated from their conquerors?
All too often it seems that those who criticize what the U.S. is doing overseas are much more concerned with the welfare of the troops than with those who have become victims of American aggression.
I find your critic nit-picky. Mr Bacevich is one of the most informed and well meaning voices in America today.
You believe my criticism of Bacevich to be "nit-picky". Your comment simply ends up making my point and that is, again, that those who criticize and condemn U.S. foreign policy seem to care very little about those people who have ended up killed and maimed and crippled as a result of American imperialism which manifests itself by having 500 lb. bombs dropped down upon so many innocent children and grandmothers. Your comment would seem to coincide with that of Bacevich and that is that American lives are always to be valued much more than those of American soldiers. Your user name [jetfan] is also all too indicative of the lack of critical thinking that is so endemic among so many sports fans.
ERROLL: You make the most significant point; and you identified what troubles me so much about Bacevich. He's been inside the military machine so long, he can't see past its own given rationales. I realize he is trying to. There is this sense that the ONLY thing that matters is how war strategy is carried out. He entirely minimizes the civilian losses as if they are merely an inconvenient fact of war, that necessary collateral damage that's so easily dismissed by the sociopaths who make their careers in the military.
Thank you for so often speaking out on the side of the angels.
With all the havoc being created by global climate changes, and the implosion of economies due to the insiders trafficking in financial weapons of mass destruction, war should be the LAST thing any nation invests in. As for America, it's still first and foremost. And therein lies the karmic rub that has only begun to show.
you are quite correct.
America's Wars, I too have often said, are ALWAYS "about US" ...NEVER or hardly ever about "them" that are the VICTIMS of america's foreign policies.
it's more often , even from people like Bacevich , about the "COSTS TO AMERICA"...
even if, the COSTS to OTHERS are INFINITELY MORE because of america's hubris that it will NEVER EVER be able to repay.
As much as I agree with your concerns, I also must point out that a polemic writer does so to be effective, thus often will engage in self-censorship in diverging too far away from what is considered "general knowledge" so as to keep a reader who is not already convinced of something with them long enough to get the main point across. Yes, there are many facets and angles to any situation, but to bring up everything would bore most readers in this day and age. If this author sees his audience as someone who has not questioned the status quo enough to be against the wars, generally due to how it "doesn't affect them here in America" that he might be able to persuade into realizing that it DOES affect them, then the points you make could be seen as external to the intent of the article.
I nowhere see that this author states "American lives are always to be valued much more than those of American soldiers." I would agree that there is an implication that he sees that such things would not be convincing enough to his perceived audience yo take up much of his article, however.
I agree with you wholly that such a thing should be a major convincing point for people, however, I do not have the optimism that you seem to have that it WOULD be a concern for most people.
HERD: I fully understand your point about a writer "staying on topic," however, we're talking about Extreme Make-overs of other nations that entail enormous kill-rates. Since that factor does not even factor into Bacevich's discussion, that constitutes a notable and serious moral failure, to say the least. The entire underlying case (and presumptions) of his analysis only concerns itself with American lives, U.S. military strategy, and death to "our own." Since recent statistics show that civilian casualties utterly trump the numbers of "enemy combatants" actually "done away with," his casual disregard for numbers some estimate to surpass one million suggests a depravity commensurate with that of a serial killer.
And your presuming this would NOT be a concern to most people speaks ill of the conscience (or what's left of it) of this nation. That, too, has been largely anesthetized by sports (us versus them), fundamentalist religious sects (us versus them), the MSM (engineered dumbing-down of the population), added to anti-depressant drugs & alcohol. This combination of desensitizing factors is a win: win combination for war elites. IF those programming devices were not so thoroughly deployed, do you think you would really be able to say that most people don't care about the MURDER of a million civilians? Or care that the cases for war have been fixed around engineered and therefore utterly false pretexts? They have been lied to 24/7! Their media choices lean to the right as do all the political operatives offered up on the American Beauty Pageant cum elections stage.
Sheep on the run way!
"nit-picky" is kind of bullshit. Bacevich can't repeat every atrocity by the Americans in every essay. Irregardless of Bacevich and his levels of information and well meaningness (We could write that about any simpleton -- see Bush and Rumsfeld), Erroll makes a fine point.
Maybe you should read it again:
"All too often it seems that those who criticize what the U.S. is doing overseas are much more concerned with the welfare of the troops than with those who have become victims of American aggression."
Bacevich is trying to sell his POV to someone. That someone is not necessarily concerned with non-Americans. He does make one statement that Erroll should read again. It is beautiful:
"Formerly trained to kill people and break things, American soldiers now attend to winning hearts and minds, while moonlighting in assassination."
While not entirely true (Americans still blow lots of shit up), it is what the PR of the Pres and military is selling.
I remember the snuff films coming from Serbia (our Slow motion destruction of passenger trains, etc)on our nightly teevee that showed it as anything but harmless.
Keep up the good observations, Erroll!
"Formerly trained to kill people and break things, American soldiers now attend to winning hearts and minds, while moonlighting in assassination."
Hogwash!!!
Bacevich also conveniently avoids the reason that we are in Afghanistan and Iraq. He avoids terms such as 'strategic interests', the 'MIC' or 'corporate design' as if the decisions to wage war rest only with a few politicos in D.C. As OIKOS above suggests, this is not a war, but an occupation that our generals are struggling to figure out ways to pacify the country. The method to leave either occupied country is actually quite easy. You simply remove all of your troops. However the corporate repercussions would result in the toppling of our own government with the full blessing of the corporate media in the process.
Any politician, who doesn't support a complete withdrawal of all U.S. forces abroad, can be accurately labeled as a corporate puppet. Instead our media labels any politician who supports any withdrawal as being weak, foolish, unrealistic and un-American.
How much longer will the public buy into this crap?
Too true. How long did it take for the mighty Soviet Union figure out there was no victory to be found in Afghanistan? Billions and billions thrown down a Central Asian money hole, and no one has an inkling of the damage being done to the Afghanis, and the damage being done right here at home.
Good point, Space Cadet.
In a similar vein, how much longer will the Chinese pay for this crap?
Chinese peasants for all of these nine years have been investing their life savings so Chinese bankers can fund the US destruction of Afghanistan. Anyone knows that if our taxes were raised for this enduring war, it would end literally tomorrow.
Bush's plan to finance this war was sell US Treasury Bonds. Obama's continued the practice. Let someone else pay for it has been their mantra.
we can only guess....perhaps so long as the chinese can continue to "quietly" insinuate themselves , economically first of all and perhaps ABOVE ALL (no one ever accused the chinese of NOT being in the business of ....making hay, ya know..not when they were the world's first "globalized" mass industrial producers to Ancient Persia hundreds of years ago, lol) ...and perhaps so long as they can be persuaded what some chinese generals last year voiced concern about the USA's growing incursions into central asia:
"WE sincerely hope that the USA will not CREATE PROBLEMS in our WESTERN BORDERS..."....
and THEN -- the chinese will NOT be very amused...considering that their "western borders" are not only close to pakistan and afghanistan ...but they are "quietly" cutting deals with the very Large Kazakhstan, and just recently, Turkmenistan...
while "ROME" thinks it OWNS central asia....doesn't "ROME" understand that this is the very region that was the PLAYGROUND of the MONGOLS?
roflmao!!
the day will come when in Central Asia will be the New Epitaph for the USA's Imperial Project:
"HERE LIES the ARMY of those that tried to Hustle the East".
"President Barack Obama’s tacit charge to his generals amounts to this: give us conditions permitting a dignified withdrawal."
I don't believe this for a second. The military intends to stay in Afghanistan forever and Obama, or any Democrat or Republican president, will do exactly as he or she is told. "Victory" is unnecessary in a conflict designed never to have a conclusion.
Yes, we agree.
the Military of the USA "intends to stay in afghanistan"....
they can "INTEND" all they want..in the end they'll be kicked out.
but before that:
exactly what is the USA expecting to accomplish?
have its "permanent" presence in order to do exactly what? SNOOP over China and Russia. they already know that.
how is the USA going to MAINTAIN the bases and on energy to feed its army? with oil from, presumably, iraq? or Iran? saudi arabia?
those countries are diversifying their clientelle anyway and the USA will have to start falling in line for the highest bidders. can the USA REALLY continue to afford that against countries that have BETTER INVESTMENTS in iraq and iran and other central asian nations with gas and oil?...considering that the USA has largely, over decades, gotten away with ARTIFICIALLY LOW PAYMENT for OIL from saudis and elsewhere when it was the world's SOLE BIG OIL consumer...but now is being rivalled by china and by the rest of the world WILLING to UP the ante ?
the USA's Army is going to do exactly what ELSE? TRY to destabilize , say , other central asian gas rich nations, like Kazakhstan or Turkmenistan -- which just recently have gotten into deep partnerships to supply gas to China ?
how is the USA going to MATCH china's leverage with ITS investments already IN turkmenistan - plus the FAR CHEAPER COST TO CHINA of landroutes for gas from central asia ..compared to what the USA has to pay OVER THE OCEANS...with nothing else outside being a buyer to offer than as a "third-party middle salesman" that other buyer countries of central asian gas would RATHER go to china or russia that can offer CHEAPER delivery prices because of their inherently land-based routes giving them better leverage?
in order to DISRUPT that leverage - by either russia or china - the USA is going to DARE destabilize those regions with its ARMY?
THAT's when china or russia WILL decide they can and are willing to MASS HUNDREDS of thousands of troops, EASILY MOBILIZED near their borders to wherever the USA Army wishes to take them on...to protect THEIR "assets" in these countries. THEY , especially china, both economically and militarily will have the GEOPOLITICAL advantage of movement and supply that the USA - "landlocked" in central asia can't match - far away from "homeland america" across the oceans.
the USA army WILL be a sitting duck...the USA"s "HADRIAN'S WALL" is right there, in central asia , right next door to the Dragon. the USA is trying to get deeper and deeper into central asia where it has NOTHING to offer that can match the over-all leverages of china and what IT represents to central asian energy rich countries as "clients willing to pay" in the REST of Asia by way of the already being built pipelines between central asia and china - and out to the pacific region. not to mention russia's interests to also be a co-supplier to the rising , developing , hungry countries which are accumulating the money to OUTBID the USA which will be forever constrained by the DISTANCE across the oceans compared to the much safer, stable landlines between central asia and the rest of the asian landmass , primarily to china.
disruption that flow of gas to the east from central asia will NOT be tolerated by china or russia AND their central asian counterparts...and that disruption can ONLY COME from the USA as it has already demonstrated to the world.
which leaves one thing : the USA is THERE TO DISRUPT that flow . and since it can NOT OFFER ANYTHING financialy competitive to china ..the only CLEAR REASON and intent is MILITARY intent.
which china CERTAINLY Will never tolerate.
in a shooting war - should the USA make that mistake - who will lose? the country that has to ship its mercenaries and soldiers in terrain that is HOSTILE to american intents (just look at pakistan and the NATO convoys) or the country , china, that has PARTNERSHIPS in that region?.
the country that can ILL -AFFORD another MILLION americans where it is seen as an invader - and has to supply those americans from a vast distance...or a country that can EASILY MASS A MILLION soldiers to the borders - and EASILY supply them for as long as it takes before the americans are literally isolated, AND perhaps, EVEN ABANDONED begging for a way out?
and THAT"s not mentioning what china can do with US TReasuries - long after it has pocketed "insurance" through its economic dealings with those same asian nations, as well as other countries in THREE OTHER CONTINENTS outside of asia:
Africa, South America and Europe?
what's the USA REALLY GOING TO DO?
only this:
LOSE.
the USA can't win this .
teddy, Good draft of thoughts, one paragraph after another; this is a good followup essay to "The Long War: Year Ten", and with a little polishing is worthy to be on the front page with our featured writers.
Editors at Common Dreams, are you reading this?
Little did we know when we cast our votes in 2008 that we were choosing among two brands of fascism. McCain offered rapacious capitalism with unbridled imperialism, while Obama offered sugar-coated rapacious capitalism with unbridled imperialism. Our civil liberties are under assault under Obama just as they were under Bush. The American "dream," if there ever was such a thing, is beyond the reach of our children and their children. Meanwhile, our young men and women continue to bleed and die in wars whose only purpose is to keep the nation on a war footing against Big Brother's current Emmanuel Goldstein bogeyman.
If General Petraeus, architect in charge of the Afghanistan counterinsurgency campaign, epitomizes the current Pentagon mindset that "there is no military solution", then why is the United States government using military force at all?
If my doctor told me that the medications I was taking would never cure what ailed me, and that continuing the present course of treatment would only mask my symptoms and likely make the whole prognosis even worse in the long run, there would appear to be only one professionally prudent course of action to take: reverse course - scale back gradually or quit cold turkey, depending upon which withdrawal option the physician and patient agree would likely work best.
As Professor Bacevich concisely puts it "relying on the force of arms to eliminate terrorism is a fool's errand." Always was. Always will be.
Therefore first, do no more harm.
Bring the troops home, parade or no parade.
Then physician, heal thyself.
Bill from Saginaw
"If General Petraeus, architect in charge of the Afghanistan counterinsurgency campaign, epitomizes the current Pentagon mindset that "there is no military solution", then why is the United States government using military force at all?"
Your question is succinct and forthright. Too bad the Main Stream Media is not asking it over and over.
What the car needs is some intelligent backseat drivers. The one at the wheel is lost.
"...The bill for our post-9/11 wars already exceeds a trillion dollars, all of it piled atop our mushrooming national debt. Helped in no small measure by Obama's war policies, the meter is still running..."
Although Bacevich does not elaborate further on this, I believe that this hits the core of the matter. These occuptations and military/imperial expenditures enrich private interests (paid for by the public) on a HUGE scale, larger than the GDPs of many countries - a form of kleptocracy.
He dosen't really explore the wildly exaggerated (and largely fictitious) narrative and story-line of terrorism that makes the underlying assumptions invalid.
"The truth is we’re lost in the desert, careening down an unmarked road, odometer busted, GPS on the fritz, and fuel gauge hovering just above E. Washington can only hope that the American people, napping in the backseat, won’t notice."
Funny.
But it's true: fewer are sleeping than appearances say. There's a bubbling under that's very encouraging.
This article disappoints, mainly in two areas.
1. Terrorism was merely the excuse for the invasion of Iraq. From before Bush entered the White House, he and his entourage of degenerates (both democrats and republicans) were determined to find a way to attack Iraq. They worked long and hard to find (create) phony reasons. Now we are supposed to celebrate a phony withdrawal. Mr. Bacevich uses the term "insurgents" as if rising up against vicious invaders means that you are a troublemaker. The corporate pigs must find all of this misreading of the facts to be quite humorous.
2. Mr. Bacevich has written one of the best delineations of the fact that war-making is the gift that keeps on giving for the Pentagon and the "security" state. Why is Mr. Bacevich unable to see that what we are in the midst of is, in fact, not only un"win"able, but that the un"winning" is the goal which the Pentagon and this "government" want to sustain or enlarge? As long as they can sustain the horror, they can increase their incomes. These sadists are not achieving less, they are succeeding in their ventures.
"No wonder the campaigns launched since 9/11 drag on and on. General Petraeus himself has spelled out the implications: “This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids' lives.”
Fine with me, asshole Betraeus. Fight for the rest of your useless life and toss in your military brat kids, too.
Die at your Mall. Die at your gas station. Die for Wal Mart. Just stop killing others for your stupid Way Of Life.
US military unbeatable in traditional terms.
You never want to test that, do you, Colonel?
Correction to Mister Bacevich..with all due respect:
The American People in the "backseat" are NOT NAPPING. not really.
they are QUITE AWARE, however "distantly in the corner of their eyes or consciousness" but , as some american poet said :
"we americans, carefully nurture an attitude of detached indifference to the suffering of others...even if WE are the CAUSE of IT".
Americans "in the backseat" are not "napping" ....
they CHOOSE to distract themselves...with a corner of their collective eye...watching if it's time to be "less uneasy" about BEING AWARE about what "our america is doing".
the American people "napping" is the same as someone that PREFERS to lie down in bed late - and PRETENDS to be asleep..and when "no one is watching" gets ACTIVE to do something else..which is ANYTHING BUT STOPPING WAR.
I wouldn't entirely agree with you, If everyone could properly pleasure themselves, we probably wouldn't have nearly so much war. Wars are created by people who think such things, especially done by young people, are bad.
Andrew, Enough with the subtleties of stratagems and policies. What is the causus belli for these illegal wars? 911 ? I thought so. One false flag deserves another. Topple the 911 house of cards and the rapaciousness of American foreign policy will be exposed. No one can itemize the billions wasted in war and thus the profits can flow freely into the coffers of the war-mongers.
TOUBIB & TEDDY: Right on!
This article made some good points, but it would have been better if instead of only looking at could a given war end up with a US victory, it looked at was even right in the first place. Surely Martin Luther King Jr or anyone else with his views would have looked at that. That should be the most important consideration and then if victory might or might not be in the cards.
It also would have helped if this author would have done as Norman Solomon looking at not just US casualties but at all casualties. The casualties of those other than US citizens should also matter as Solomon would tell anyone willing to listen.
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