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No Learning Curve in Washington
As we know from a single April 19, 2003 New York Times piece, the Pentagon arrived in Saddam Hussein's Iraq preparing for a long stay. They already had at least four mega-military bases on the drawing boards as they entered the country (all subsequently built). "Enduring camps" they decided to call them, rather than the dicier "permanent bases." In the end, hundreds of bases were constructed in Iraq, from the tiniest combat outposts to monster installations, to the tune of untold billions of dollars. In the end, hundreds are now being left behind to be stripped, looted, or occupied by the Iraqi military.
From Baghdad, the British Guardian's correspondent Martin Chulov recently reported that part of the price Nouri al-Maliki seems to have negotiated (in Tehran, not Washington) to retain his prime ministership may involve not letting the Pentagon keep even a single monster base in Iraq after 2011. This was evidently demanded by former U.S. nemesis, rebel cleric, and now "kingmaker" Muqtada al-Sadr, whose movement controls more than 10% of the votes in Iraq's new parliament. That can't make the Pentagon, or the U.S. high command, happy -- and the Obama administration is already kicking.
However this ends for Washington, barely based or baseless in Iraq, surely this was not the way it was supposed to happen, not when it was still "mission accomplished" time and it seemed so self-evident that American military power, obviously unchallengeable, would be deeply entrenched on either side of Iran until "regime change" occurred there.
If you want a measure of how far the U.S. has "fallen" in Iraq, it now has only 21 "burn pits" there -- places at U.S. bases where waste of all sorts is incinerated, regularly spewing smoke filled with toxic emissions into the air to the detriment of American soldiers (and undoubtedly local Iraqis as well). On the other hand, according to a Government Accountability Office report, there are now 221 such pits in Afghanistan and "more coming." Put another way, even as America's baseworld in Iraq dwindles, there seems to be no learning curve in Washington. As Nick Turse suggests in his most recent TomDispatch report, in Afghanistan we seem to be heading down the Iraq path with a special ardor. In fact, it's boom time for bases in Afghanistan. More than nine years after our "successful" invasion, billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are still flowing into constructing and upgrading the massive Afghan base structure -- and yet, there are never enough of them.
In a recent Wall Street Journal piece on an unexpected surge of Taliban successes in northern Afghanistan, Army Colonel Bill Burleson, commander of the 10th Mountain Division, among the relatively modest U.S. forces in the northern part of that country, is quoted as saying somewhat desperately of Taliban gains in the region: "In order to deny that terrain to the enemy you'd have to have people all over Afghanistan in combat outposts." Good point, Colonel. Why stop now?
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18 Comments so far
Show AllWhen will we notice that we cannot afford all of these foreign wars, foreign bases, and foreign puppet governments? We are addicted to war. America is alcoholic on war. America and our family and friends in the community of nations have had enough wealth to cover our addiction, until recently. Our family and friends have been politely turning a blind-eye, making excuses for us, avoiding telling us that we are war addicts. Our 9-11 attack on our self was like addicts cutting their own wrists, in order to scare family and friends into giving us more resources and more cover for our addiction to war. We always seek one more hit, one more binge, even as we stagger economically and can no longer govern ourselves in a rational, coherent way. We borrow, pilfer, lie, and steal to get the resources for more war. It is unfortunate that there is no Al-Anon for nations addicted to war. As everyone knows, the only cure for an alcoholic, is for family and friends to stop paying for the addiction, stop covering up for the addiction, stop pretending that there is no problem. America's truest friends will be those nations that refuse to join us in foreign wars, refuse to vote with us at the UN Security Council, refuse to loan us money, refuse to flatter us with false praise about our greatness, our democracy, our humanitarian ideals.
Astonishingly perceptive analogy, SC, very helpful analysis of the problem.
The only thing I would quibble with is the focus of the addiction. I think the military hardware is a means to an end, ie, it's the tool we use to get what we are really addicted to, which is MORE.
More oil, more land, more natural resource, more control, an ever expanding empire. We are the same phenomenen as the school-yard bully who brings dad's pocket knife to school so he can steal your cookies. Just a few social system levels higher.
And like dad, citizens of the US are reluctant to consider that junior might be a bully, a sociopathic menace. So dad, andmost US citizens become the enablers of the addiction.
And at the elevated systems level of a nation, our little bully becomes a threat to the species so that all who get in the way of the next 'fix' will be in grave danger.
We will need a brilliantly designed plan to treat this addiction successfully.
You are correct. The Frontier needs to expand forever. Read Brooks Adams's "The Law of Civilization and Decay," which was heavilly influenced by WJ Turner's "Closing of the Frontier" thesis.
I agree with the addiction metaphor. As someone very familiar with AA and alcohol and drug addiction over the past 35 years, I see the parallels.
A common saying in AA is that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results".
The USA is on a war binge like a drunk on a drinking binge. Like a drunk, the warmaking machine will have to "hit bottom" before it stops; and honestly I don't know what that will take.
All of us who pay taxes are in the position of "enabler".
What if 100 million of us declined to pay taxes that support the wars?
As long as the money keeps going to the Pentagon, they will keep spending it.
It's OUR money!
Don't give them any more blood money.
SERIOUS: I take issue with the idea that America represents a uniform fabric, one constituted by the pronoun WE. Furthermore, your post says NOTHING about the following:
l. The degree of indoctination going on to create the public's compliance with the make-war state. (The lack of pro-peace voices in media is one telling example.)
2. It says nothing about the way churches rally round the idea of a holy war, and how many MILLIONS have been seduced by false prophets of carnage.
3. It says nothing about the insidious degree to which the MIC wound its tentacles around every state so that in job-insecure times, the idea of cutting off aid to the military seems like fiscal suicide for state after state.
4. It says nothing about the way history is taught so that patriotism is linked to war, and of course, "winning" war.
5. It says nothing about the manner by which Hollywood conflates heroism with a readiness to deploy violence as seen in an endless parade of well-armed macho action figures.
6. It says nothing about the near-worship of uber: macho sports like football, and the way they reinforce memes like "supporting ones team" and "slaughtering the enemy."
7. It says nothing about a population grown fat and dull, in part through the purposeful orchestration of behavioral mod tactics and Bernays-style social engineering tactics. Unhappy people are unable to feel empathy for the fate of others.
I could add more to this list, but I'll stop here. The point is, I am so tired of seeing a false consensus placed over U.S. foreign and domestic policy. If you're going to blame all citizens, then at least have the decency to explain what got them to the place where they act like Pavlov's dogs in the first place!
MILLIONS have been against these wars, and many understand that the homeland security state is losing a great deal (in the way of a quality of life) to the wastes spent on wars for empire. You insult the voices of conscience by suggesting that WE are all in the addict/alcoholic stupor.
NOT TRUE!
Thank you for the comment. I do not disagree with any of what you have written. Comments are short and are not the place for the book length treatise you would like me to write. The fact is, however, with all of the war-promoting mechanisms you describe, and with all of the millions of Americans who oppose war (nevertheless a minority), the NET EFFECT, for many decades across many different administrations, is that the USA attacks, invades, and occupies many foreign nations. That NET EFFECT sums up to MORE WAR. That is what allows me to say WE are a nation that has an addiction to war. With an alcoholic, it is certain that the liver cells do not like alcohol, and would vote against another drink if they could. So, not every cell in the alcoholic's body likes alcohol. Nevertheless, the alcoholic person, as biological system of decision and power, has decided to drink excessively. Some alcoholics can, by decision, stop. Most cannot. Most only stop when the anti-alcohol minority in the body, usually the liver cells, close down and die. I am not sure what would be the equivalent for a nation addicted to militarism. Probably when unemployment and poverty gets so high that the economy fails, or when there is a spreading break down in social order, the equivalent of cancer. OUR next war, probably with Iran, will probably destroy US as a coherent society, considering that half of the world's oil comes from the Persian Gulf, which WE are planning to make into a permanent war zone, contaminated for centuries with radiation from the nuclear power plants that WE want to blow up. That is TRUE!
Colonialism.
200 years ago, the USA fought against it, now they are its biggest promoter.
the US colonized north america, and colonized asia through the pacific war.
Correction. The "Founders" wanted to do the exploiting and killing themselves. They had the "vision" to conquer the whole continent, a vision not shared by the British at the time.
"...regularly spewing smoke ...into the air to the detriment of American soldiers (and undoubtedly local Iraqis as well)."
Interestingly, Tom, even in your enlightened work, the Iraqis are merely a parenthetical note.
Maybe that parentheses is sarcasm?
Check out "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" to see how it was supposed to work out in Iraq.
Try "Fort Apache" (John Ford) while you're at it.
The biggest "burn pit" is the United States itself.
The US builds bases all over and rules the world--until it can't.
There is always a learning curve, but in our case it's a straight line with a noticeable downward slope.
Who cares about Iraq? That's all news. Time to go into Pakistan and Iran and do it all over again. Two countries at a time till there's none left to invade, bomb, pillage, plunder & rape.