The 100 Years War
In the past 24 hours, Dick Cheney has been in Baghdad, calling the Iraq War a "successful endeavor." John McCain's there too, and actually uttered those four magic words, "the surge is working," which only differs from Cheney's analysis in the scary possibility that McCain might actually believe it. Then again, maybe Cheney's pronouncement can be chalked up to youthful exuberance -- after all, he's almost 5 years younger than McCain.
And then there's that other possibility, the one that's starting to scare me: That by a certain neocon definition, Iraq is a success.
What if the war in Iraq did go on for 100 years, as McCain suggested it might? What are we looking at? An entire century of ever-increasing military spending, necessitating deep cuts in all other government programs -- like public education and health care and all that other sissy stuff. A staging ground for ten decades of warfare with Islamist militants, for whom the place is becoming a terrorist fantasy camp ("Come to Iraq and fight real Americans in your own back yard! Get your picture taken with real al Qaeda pros! Learn the fundamentals of blowing yourself up!"). And endless, lucrative contracts for American companies that support the war effort, from Grumman to Raytheon to -- of course -- Halliburton. Companies that in the absence of a Cold War might otherwise see their prospects dwindling.
What about that is not a success, by neocon standards? I've been scoffing at it for so long that think I missed the point. It's not a question of if the surge is working -- it's about whom it's working for.
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Another set of "Dirty Little Secrets". Thanks, Bill:
dlsxpatria
This war is the very embodiment of Fascism.
Exactly! With everything the Bush administration does you have to look at who stands to gain from it. In the case of the war, it is definitely the defense corporations.
well, McCain is just a tool!
He's being used by the warmongers who are making a fortune in the middle easts' killing fields.
Being blindsided at his age connotes the foolishness his ilk have to believe we need to continue on the killing in the middle East. Par the course.
Americans who really do AGREE with this vision have become so detatched from their humanity or they haven't arrived to begin with. Hard to tell which is which.
All the more we need to stop eating the democrats alive, both here and elsewhere.
It's our only out of this insanity.
Actually, I'm not as concerned about out being in Iraq for any lenght of time as I am at ourleaving and Iran filling the void. Think you are paying high gas prices now? Just wait until they reach 10 bucks a gallon; that is if you can even get it.
What I'm more worried about is Obama being a war monger. If you read between the lines of some of his speeches and interviews it's very worrisome. This guy will have us all over the globe fighting skirmishes. That was my initial reason for giving up my support for Obama. . After reading the following article at the below link it confirmed the uneasiness about Obama that I have been feeling for some time.
For all you people who are voting for Obama because you think he's going to end the war and bring in a reign of peace, or because you think it will save your butt from one day being drafted, you need to read this article, and then read between the lines of what Obama's really saying in his speeches and interviews. That's what this British reporter did, which confirmed the same fears I have, and what she's found is terrifying.
http://buc
Exerpts:
Two myths must be exploded: first, that Barack Obama was a principled and passionate opponent of the war in Iraq; second, that if he were installed in the White House he would resist the temptation to launch new wars and would instead usher in an era of peace.
President Obama would be a warmonger. He would be a wide-eyed, zealous interventionist who would not think twice about using America’s “military muscle” (his words) to overthrow “rogue states” and to suppress America’s enemies, real and imagined. He would go farther even than President Bush in transforming the globe into America’s backyard and staffing it with spies and soldiers. He would relish the “American mission” to police the world and topple tyrannical regimes.
After eight years of Bush’s military meddling in the Middle East, if you want more war, vote Obama.
Like we should believe a conservative's analysis of Obama's beliefs and motives. What a moron you are. First, Obama has fully explained why his votes have mirrored Hillary - once the bus is in the ditch, not much else you can do. Second, after the last 8 years, why should anybody believe any form of conservative analysis of anything. If Mr. O'Neill actually believed what he wrote about Obama, the article would have also included an endorsement and a call to all Republicans to vote for Obama because he's the man who will continue the great neocon vision of new American diplomacy.
Renewing American Leadership
Barack Obama
From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007
“I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened.
We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability -- to support friends, participate in stability and reconstruction operations, or confront mass atrocities.
As president, I will work with other nations to secure, destroy, and stop the spread of these weapons in order to dramatically reduce the nuclear dangers for our nation and the world.
I will join with our allies in insisting -- not simply requesting -- that Pakistan crack down on the Taliban, pursue Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, and end its relationship with all terrorist groups.
To keep pace with highly adaptable enemies, we need technologies and practices that enable us to efficiently collect and share information within and across our intelligence agencies.
We need to invest in building capable, democratic states that can establish healthy and educated communities, develop markets, and generate wealth.
I will couple our support with an insistent call for reform, to combat the corruption that rots societies and governments from within.”
How is this any different than what any other candidates or previous president has said or done? Isn’t time for a real change in America’s foreign policies and strategic interests?
Wrong again. Are you that clueless? McCain said our forces will be there 100 years. We have been in Germany and Japan over 60 years and Korea nearly that. What don’t you understand about it? The Senator didn’t mean we would be at war 100 years but that we will have a significant presence in Iraq and we are there to help defend the government and country from outside enemies. That is exactly why we have been in Germany, Japan and Korea as long as we have been.
"we will have a significant presence in Iraq and we are there to help defend the government and country from outside enemies. That is exactly why we have been in Germany, Japan and Korea as long as we have been."
And why must it be the U.S. that defends those governments from outside enemies? I'll answer that question for you: because (and possibly rightfully), we do not allow them to have their own military. Germany and Japan, especially, have demonstrated on more than one occasion that having a strong national army when powerful nationalistic forces sweep over them leads to trouble for the whole world. The whole world, therefore, more or less agreed to keep them disarmed. But it was unfair in a tough Cold War to leave them unprotected, and so we placed military forces in those two countries. But our military forces stationed there served a much broader purpose, one that seldom gets mentioned -- they were designed to be within striking distance of our perceived rivals, the USSR and the PRC. Major military bases in Germany, Japan and Korea were a clear part of the containment policy that dictated American foreign policy until the collapse of the Soviet Union. We would today have similar bases in South Vietnam had political realities not changed so radically between 1950 and 1970. Those large and permanent military bases that we are building in Iraq and Afghanistan are not designed to protect the people of those two countries from an invasion ... they are designed as launching points against enemies competing for influence at the center of Eurasia -- real or perceived -- that could include Russia, China, India or any unified Islamic state that might emerge in the future.
READ YOUR HISTORY BOOKS.....
We are occupiers, not defenders.
However, they stopped shooting at us the moment the war ended. The same can not be said in Iraq. Those wars also weren't a distraction from the actual war going on as Iraq is. I don't believe in just withdrawing because that wouldn't be in our best interests, but at this point we have to at least move in that direction. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has left us with no good choices.
Yes, and our forces in Germany & Japan are paid for with REAL REVENUE on the actual budget not endless off budget deficit spending borrowed from the CHI-COMs.
A quick look at the comments tells me that we are all very united when it comes to anything but the question of Hillary or Barack. We all want out of this F*#@$ing war yesterday! The other day I heard a speech on foreign policy that was pragmatic, inclusive and chock full of wholesome goodness.
I suggest anyone who is still leaning to the Clinton side check it out on youtube. It was given in NC by Senator Obama. I believe it was 3/19.
The neocon credo has always been
"All for ourselves, and none for others."
EVERYTHING conservative has ALWAYS been a matter of "who it's working for."
When I used to watch Charlie Rose (I don't anymore because screaming at the tv set grew tiresome), he would have neocons on before the war started and a few would actually admit that the purpose was to turn the region into turmoil and then rebuild it into something more of what they wanted. Was I the only one watching? I knew that the Iraq disaster known as the war was a great experiment having nothing to do with 911 or wmd and I was just a stay at home mom. I was absolutely shocked that the resolution passed. Actually, I'm still shocked.
Before this war started, I heard someone suggest that a major goal of the neocons was to force the national debt so high that all of the entitlement programs of the New Deal would have to be dismantled. Beyond rebuilding the region, it looks like the war will help accomplish just that! Wait a minute, wasn't that also a goal of Bin Laden? Who knew that Bin Laden was a neocon?
I heard someone say that about the Bush administration. That they were trying to dismantle FDR's New Deal. It was another Charlie Rose episode and the guest saying it was none other than HILLARY CLINTON! She knew yet she fell in line with the lie about WMD. I cannot vote for her and will not.
Once again, the imagination of a liberal fails, when confronted by the ethical constructs of the rich.
A rich person GETS rich in the first place by being a certain kind of person, and by having certain kinds of priorities. Compassion, charity, peace and stability, equity, sanity. None of these human preferences have the potential to MAKE MONEY; and hence they are not part of the rich lexicon, except in the public relations department. NEVER trust the rich.
Division, separation, secrecy, conflict, and human suffering all have the laudable quality that a person can make money off of them, if one's standards have been winnowed of the aforesaid weaknesses.
It shouldn't be any surprise, to any thinking being, that NeoCons like to make money, and are very good at it. They do it by not caring about any ying qualities, but only yang. Ying is preservative, Yang exploitative. This is the nature of the people who now own the soul of our country.
It's 1984, and the Permanent War is just starting.
------
stop watching tv.
It won't work much longer for the contractors, because the US taxpayer can't afford it much longer. Then, we'll have to reinstitute the draft to finish up with cheaper bodies for all the support work. That may wind up being better for the US soldiers who are already there as at least those patriots who are currently sitting it out over here may actually care about the soldiers and not give them poison water and such poor electrical wiring that they are getting electrocuted.
But, with the draft and all those new bodies, we may finally do something about that axis of evil member, Iran. The scary part of this past week for me was how many times all these guys made comments about Iran. They made negative and threatening comments even when they knew they were wrong and easily refuted. I'm just glad I'm not in the 48% of the country that voted these guys in!
IF THE U.S. OCCUPATION OF IRAQ WERE TO CONTINUE FOR ANOTHER 100 YEARS....
That would mean there would be over 100,000 military dead in Iraq, given the current rate of casualties there. That's nearly TWICE the number that died in Vietnam and would put Iraq up there with the Civil War and World Wars I and II in terms of total casualties.
Hillary Clinton in her campaign speeches has repeatedly stated that the U.S. (Bush) brought freedom to Iraq. If she wins the elections, can you imagine the Victory in Iraq parties for the Bush Clinton clans at the WH?
Well, I guess it depends on how you define freesom. Freedom from clean water and electricity perhaps?
When I hear the amount of money it is costing us to stay in Iraq, it makes me sick. I don't know how that amount of money can keep pouring out of our country into Iraq -- and where is it going?
Good question about the money, since we know it's not going to American soldiers and the latest news is that it's not going to our Iraqi allies, either.
http://www
Curious how there's been no mainstream coverage of this story. We have stolen or destroyed Iraq's resources, killed or indentured the people and set up a military fiefdom.
As far as Bush/Chene
GOOD POINT...
Those of us who have retained their sanity on this issue tend to believer, I think, that neocons, as well as Bush/Cheney/McCain, are LYING when they proclaim that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is a "success." Maybe they're NOT lying, though. Maybe, as you suggest, in their terms, Iraq really IS a success. (Please excuse me while I lose my dinner in a sickness bag...)
Where is the money going? No bid contracts to Halliburton/KBR, etc., and all of their subcontractors. I've read articles that show several layers of subcontractors, each layer only doing paperwork & taking their cut of the money while passing the actual work on to the next level. With the contracts all being no bid and cost plus, money is no object.
I'm just glad that the financial cost is finally getting more widespread conversation. For the past year, I've called my senators and congresswoman at least once a month to either raise taxes to pay for this mess so it isn't passed on to my kids and grandkids - or GET OUT. Has anyone else done the same?
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