We've pulled out of Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, a happy day for looters, and an outward and visible sign of the end of our 20 year war in that country. Did we win that war? Apparently not, the Taliban look set to take over, which raises a bigger question. Why do we keep fighting wars we don't win.
Korea and Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, not exactly victories. It's curious, we're obviously up for a fight but we're not prepared to close the deal, and actually win. Why? Big question. Money, war is a racket, political chicanery, lack of will, the list goes on and we can parse the issue till the Eschaton, but I will say this.
If we're going to fight, we should fight to win, 100%, sure of the rightness of the cause. Anything less is a betrayal of our soldiers and the people they're supposedly fighting for. To say nothing of the betrayal of our country by its rulers, and the people whose lives they've catastrophically ruined.
Is the problem fixable?
Your call,
LSP
Major General Smedley Butler, 1935 War is a racket
ReplyDeleteOthers have said "Business is the business of America."
Neither related to Losing wars. We need to stop doing that.
I personally think that Iraq/Afghanistan were ill conceived responses to 9/11. I'd have been happier nuking Mecca and Medina very soon after 9/11 and lets get this thing on.
We lost all respect when we didn't keep everything we won in WWII and had a United States from the Rhine to China. Instead we just gave it all back. If you want to win a war you have to keep what you've won. Permanently. Our enemies have learned that all they have to do is wait us out.
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall that when we left France, as it left NATO, runways were demo'd as the last planes left.
ReplyDelete"...boxes haven't even been opened until the Taliban got to them".
ReplyDelete"A surge of violence, including attacks on intellectuals, journalists and prominent women,..."
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taliban-parade-new-weapons-seized-afghan-military-u-s-withdraws-n1273081
"Is the problem fixable?"
Absolutley. But we haven't had the will to do that since 1945. Even Desert Storm stopped short.
So long as we elect politicians instead of leaders, these wars will be a military/industrial cash cow.
ReplyDeleteThe "business of war and political graft keep us from winning wars.
ReplyDeleteAnd now the "woke military" will keep us from winning.
Kid, LL always says, and he'd know, that Afghanistan should never have been "Big Army." But think of the fortunes made. There's a special room in hell for that crew, imo.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, no one's held the Saudis and their precious meteorite to account. Maybe that'll change.
PS. Like Butler's book.
I had an argument along just those lines, Mikey, back in the days of Gulf War II. My friend, a scholarly old flint lock of a classical liberal, said it was against our ethos as a nation. Of course I took the imperial approach.
ReplyDeleteThe latter can be good, all hail Lord Curzon and the Raj, but perhaps it's hard to go at from the POV of the Declaration of Independence. But what am I saying. Our foreign policy's severed its ties from founding documents, right or wrong, or, apparently, victory itself.
Just keep fighting and the cash'll keep coming. Something like that.
I'd forgotten that, Ed. Good call.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree, RHT. And, to be fair, it'd take a pretty iron will to genuinely police/rule the world. America could do it, others have, but think of the resolve, the utter belief in the rightness of the thing. Heck, our sports teams can't even stand for the anthem.
ReplyDeleteThey're making enormous, huge, monumental amounts of cash, WSF. It's sickening. And yes, about time for some leaders.
ReplyDeleteAin't that the truth, Linda.
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase Hilaire Belloc (and badly so I should think):
ReplyDelete"Whatever happens, we have got
the Maxim gun, but use it wisely not"
The ugly truth - and all so eloquently & passionately expressed, LSP!! Over the past 20-30 years I've had a very slow awakening to the REAL "truth" of America at war in this generation! It's rally sad and SUCH a waste - of money and, of course, of human lives (and the loss of American lives is especially painful to me!). Pres. Trump had the right idea: No more unnecessary wars or wars we are NOT prepared to WIN!
ReplyDeleteWe haven't fought to win since WWII... sigh
ReplyDeleteThe problem is not only are we fighting the enemy, we are fighting the Press which can always be counted on to take the side of whomever America is fighting.
ReplyDelete