A small band of Brits still try to defend America's current foreign policy to a sceptical world. When US forces abroad do something cruel or counter-productive, like bombing another wedding party or fighting the wrong country, we point to their nobler values and to past defences of freedom. Surely they at least meant well. The Wikileaks revelations now gleefully headlined across Europe have left us floundering.
The brutality and apparent collapse of front-line discipline is charted in thousands of meticulously filed US government reports, proving only one thing, that any war "among the people" that goes on too long degrades its participants and degenerates into senseless cruelty. Our friends become our victims and our enemies triumphant.
The fact that the leaks are irresponsible and helpful to the enemy is by now immaterial. The enemy, mostly Iran, is riding high on the sheer incompetence of coalition and NATO operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and increasingly Pakistan. Hilary Clinton's objection to them, that they are leaks, hardly meets the case. These are true records from the side that claims "higher values", of helicopters shooting innocent individuals in cold blood, of the massacring of 600 civilian drivers, women and children among them, at checkpoints, of the killing of people trying to surrender, of a litany of prisoner torture and maltreatment that shows Abu Ghraib was no exception. The idea that the American invasion liberated Iraqis from kidnap, torture, rape and summary execution is shown to be a sick untruth. Indeed a shocking feature of the leaks is that few Iraqis appeared surprised.
I have visited enough wars to see what happens to young soldiers when politicians' promises of victory prove false. Led by fools into swamps, they adjust their moral compasses, at first slowly and then fast. The leaks show controllers departing from any concern for "winning hearts and minds" as self-protection takes precedence over the safety of others. Troops err on the side of violence. An obsession with kill rates, inherited from Vietnam, recruits enemies at every turn and makes the prospect of stability and peace ever more distant.
In Afghanistan the random killing of Pashtun as "bad guys" has become a call to arms not just across Waziristan and the Punjab but throughout the muslim world. On a recent visit to Pakistan, I was shocked at savagely unpopular America has become, not because of its aims but because of its methods, now reinforced by the pilotless bombing of mountain villages. Many Pakistanis genuinely believe Washington is in the pay of Ahmadinejad of Iran, as his influence increases over regimes from Beirut and Damascus to Baghdad and Kabul. This too is recorded in the leaks.
I at least expected Clinton to offer some apology for the reckless cruelties recorded, and to suggest some inquiry into the more outrageous atrocities. Instead she only damned those who leaked the truth. What on earth are America's friends to say?
Robert Greenwald: Profit-Chasing Guns-for-Hire Are Killing Us in Iraq and Afghanistan
Stephen Schlesinger: Obama's Afghan Deadline Is Working
I say this because unfortunately right wingers all over try to emulate America's.
In america there is only one TV news station that actually covers the news, "Democracy Now".
And THAT'S pretty scary. Back in the 60's and 70's I never imagined that in the year 2010, at this late stage of my life, things would be so incredibly out of balance in our society.
Keep posting.
circumsribes and predates that travesty, the rise and changing fortunes of the Wahhabi
cult, its multifaceted influence today, its fanatical Weltanschauung. Rather than write
a sermon here, I would like to cite a book that I am now reading that deals in depth
with this cult, its origins in the 18th Century, its advancement in alliance with ancestors
of the current Saudi royal family. Here is the book:
God's Terrorists, The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad, by
Charles Allen (da Capo Press, 2006).
Whatever the sin of our involvement in recent chapters of the centuries long "Great
Game," we are under existential threat by the reality of the Wahhabi in its many
manifestations, the background theocratic underpinnings of Saudi Arabia where
it is quiescent except to those whom it mutilates and beheads, the Taliban, Al
Qaeda, and the theocratic Gestalt of Iran. Meanwhile, Pakistan, which has nuclear
weapons, is perpetually unstable and flooded with extremist groups small and large
whose fundamentalist fanaticism is Wahhabi whatever the front office name. If
any of these groups gains ascendancy in Pakistan, then, madmen capable of using
directly or indirectly nuclear weapons will now have some ready to go. That is our
worst existential problem in the middle east, and we have to face it.
US policy since WWII has been an unmitigated disaster, and incredibly, after butchering millions and destroying the economies of 2 countries, the country CONTINUES to do everything in its power to create NEW enemies.
What are you going to say when the US and Israel attack Iran, that it was an accident ?
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2008/02/un-deception-what-exactly-colin-powell-knew-five-years-ago-and-what-he-told-world
The Iraq war was an illegal action.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3661134.stm
Hussein was a trusted friend of the US when he followed orders and used his people as cannon fodder during the Iran - Iraq war.
http://www.famouspictures.org/mag/index.php?title=Donald_Rumsfeld_Shakes_Hands_With_Saddam_Hussein
Those other web-sites, by which I assume you mean the guardian et al?
If so, you couldn't be more wrong about them not shedding light on the sins of the UK, Blair and others.
If you really believe that the US has tried to bring peace and stability to the middle east, I don't know what to say other than to ask what reasons you would have to think that?
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/oil_nationalization/oil_nationalization.php
Invading and setting up a permanent military occupation of Iraq is not a peaceful nor stabilizing action.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5411.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13420.htm
Don't disillusion them.
frank day 5 hours ago (11:15 AM)
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America's friends will say, "Shame on you, now go protect us for free."
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I feel some trepidation at arguing with a 'superuser', but wth.
Perhaps you didn't know what we (America's 'friends') say about you behind your back...
Allow me to enlighten you...
We whisper amongst ourselves about how we need protection from YOU. Period.
And that's the truth.
I'm from Canada. So.....I guess we won't be saying anything at all. Mums the word.
Contrary to popular American belief...Canada is governed by Bush-lite Stephen Harper. And he is DESPERATE to keep any and all news and accountability about Canadian involvement in t. or ture and w a r crimes under wraps. So don't expect us to say anything.
We are complicit.
The other wealthy democracies would like to enjoy their prosperity while turning their backs to the rest of the world.
An isolationist America would be the worst type of immorality.
I would suggest the bright light of US as savior is now a dim bulb in a very large room
But don't forget WWII and the Korean War though.