Look, there’s no way those rice paddy waders can beat us …
Look, there’s no way those jungle commies can beat us…
Look, there’s no way those terrorist cave-dwellers can beat us …
Look, there’s no way those camel herders can beat us …
If there’s one true hallmark of America, it’s that we don’t learn lessons. It’s a perfectly good question to ask why we made the same mistake in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and then Iraq. But I have an even more instructive question: How is it we’ve forgotten that our very own founding myth is a superior military force saying about us: Look, there’s no way those colonists can beat us …
The military has been dining out on two reasonably successful campaigns over the past 100 years: Our stabilizing of the Allies in World War I, and our assisting the Soviets in winning World War II. The latter was particularly glorious, and has been the marketing brochure of the Armed Forces ever since. Unfortunately, our record since then is less New England Patriots and more Detroit Lions: Four major conflicts. Two giant Ls; one tie I’m calling an L because we’re *still* involved 65 years later and then … whatever Iraq was and is, it’s definitely not a win for Team America.
We’ve known for generations now that the military can’t nation-build. But since we put a lot of money into that very shiny hammer, every problem in the world must be a nail. Similarly, the only government response the nation’s anti-government party will support is military action, thus, that’s what we get. We keep swinging our giant hammer and keep being surprised when we’re actually smashing it into a screw, or a drill bit, or hell, a bowl of vanilla pudding.
And incredibly, we don’t just hit it once or twice — we keep hitting it no matter how much pudding ends up on the floor and in our face. There are still people arguing that “if only we’d stayed longer” as if 20 years was a pop-in visit. Did I mention that we still have bases in Cuba, Germany and Korea? Those wars ended somewhere between 60 and 120 years ago and we’re still sending troops there.
It’s so glaringly obvious that even Mango Unchained gets it. He spoke out about the folly of endless war years ago and to his credit — there are some words I’m rather stunned to find my fingers typing — he neither started any new wars nor felt all that compelled to keep their manpower up during his reign of error. That he now condemns Biden for doing what he said should have been done earlier is boringly traditional CYA shit, and in a saner world, would disappoint the people who have imagined Trump to be in their circle of anti-imperialist friends.
I think the government owes us the truth at all times and I don’t believe the media should pull punches when it comes to uncovering things we’re not being told. And yet, what to do about the theory that Covid-19 was a lab leak in Wuhan, China? From what I understand, it’s far from the most plausible theory but it’s clearly not an impossibility. Which suggests that the early scoffing was from people well aware of what it meant to paint China as the bad guy — and the sudden resurrection of the theory was trying to turn Covid-19 from a complex problem into something that looks a lot like a nail.
Which is to say, we’ll no doubt be back here in a few years just raring to kick somebody’s ass on extremely thin justification in a place most Americans can’t find on a map. Will it be China and the Senkaku Islands? Will we have to go to war in Yemen to somehow destabilize Iran? Will we decide to drill the Arctic and dare Russia to stop us? Will an African nation rich in certain minerals suddenly need its women freed and its LGBTQ community protected? Will Raytheon’s stock slip enough to require intervention in Nepal?
Well, we’ll find out as soon as everyone ties a yellow ribbon around the ole amnesia that follows our military disasters. But hey, at least there’s no way those farmers can beat us.
Diplomacy doesn’t play well in the polls….
So I’m less convinced this is true than it used to be. Trump isn’t an anti-war candidate but I think the “stay forever” mentality is something that’s extremely popular with Beltway elites, defense contractors and media types and … not all that popular elsewhere. The real blood thirsty right-wingers talk a big game, but they’d generally rather trigger the libs than actually fight anything.
NPR decided to hand over its airwaves to John Freaking Bolton this morning to opine how we should have expanded the war in Afghanistan.
As long as the media decides to never bother to learn who is a clueless ideologue, we’ll be stampeded again.
As horrible as Trump and his fans are, the idea that the media will give chances to shitbags like Bolton because he broke from Mango (late and half-assedly and to sell his bullshit book) is probably worse. Bolton was **HEAVILY** involved in this shitstorm from the beginning, and unless the questions were “How much blood do you have on your hands?” and “Should you be tried by The Hague?” then he should not be on any airwaves.
It was what, a year ago maybe, that we found out if Bolton hadn’t gone home for clean underwear then Trump would have listened to him and launched war in Iran?
The guy is a freakshow. He is not fit. NPR is embarrassing itself by punching his ticket for club membership.
…it’s not like I’m any kind of an expert or anything…but the thing about these conflicts that have few defined goals & seemingly no functional exit strategies is…well…it kinda seems like the strategy from at least some points of view is never to exit?
…much in the way that capitalism at some level demands constant growth peace doesn’t exactly pay a dividend to the military-industrial complex unless there’s at least a need for a permanent military footprint when the active conflict is over
…that a lot of money got spent “on afghanistan” isn’t really in question…but I can’t help but wonder how much of it got spent in places where the profits came home before the troops did?
In three points as short as I can make them:
– One is that we’re insanely arrogant. Outside looking in, we have to factor in just how dangerous that is when these people plan “splendid little wars.” Donald Rumsfeld really believed in his coal-black heart that Iraqis would see us as liberators. So the plan isn’t “never exit” but the plan also isn’t “be reasonable about what the plan should be.”
– Once we decided that we were going to treat terrorism as a war — which we SO didn’t have to! — Afghanistan was always going to happen. We could have made it a more limited engagement, but there was almost no way to win and even fewer options for a simple exit. Iraq was never going to greet us as liberators but the odds of it happening there were about a million times better than anything similar in Afghanistan, which is both far more fractious and less modern in outlook.
– Lastly, Afghanistan has been great for defense contractors and “private security” companies and even if I don’t buy the “war forever for stock prices” cynical take … it’s also not wrong. The thing is that the military-industrial marriage is already so consummated that we don’t need a war for it to keep humming along; all we need are global threats and those will always be provided whether truthful or not.
…short isn’t something I’m good at…& when it comes to the impossible nature of a war on an abstract concept like terror I’m pretty sure there being no short answer is kind of baked into the premise
…but I can’t help but agree that entirely more of how this has all gone falls under the heading of inevitable…so I don’t think I’m arguing with any of what you’re saying…to be honest I find that any time I try to discuss this stuff it feels a lot like trying to have a whole bunch of conversations at once…& not really doing justice to any of them?
The only person I know that was involved with both Iraq and Afghanistan was my friends super aggro younger brother who worked for some company sub contracted to handle the US military supply chain in both places. His job was to check in supplies to make sure that what was ordered was correct. He made 200k a year. That’s right – two hundred thousand dollars a year to check in supplies. Yes, he was over there, but he lived in the green zone and was never in any danger. He was a huge a-hole and it’s ridiculous that he made that kind of money when the soldiers actually doing the fighting could barely make ends meet.
1 The MSM has no side but their own which usually lines up with GOPer goals and ideals.
2 The only thing we can do is ensure ultra fanatical relgoids don’t take over here.
3 I agree, the whole collapse was going to happen anyway.
4 I wonder if we could send all those military contractors over there… Eric Prince as Sean Connery’s character from The Man Who Would Be King.
See also –
If your fundamentalist groups (terrorist or sanctioned) are using some variation of “just like they have done for centuries, the US/Western Europe wants to come in here and destroy how we live and force us to give up our heritage!!!”
Then taking military occupation and then forcing new political structures, etc under the guise of “liberation” really fucking plays right into their hands and enables them to stay strong with their faction(s).
I think the end of the Cold War is really instructive on this idea: We could have blitzed Russia with aid and assistance and a helping hand or seven and we cheaped out, helped a few powerful people consolidate wealth under the guise of “bringing capitalism” and within a decade we had Putin in power. After World War II we were smart enough to realize that it was worth the cost to help rebuild Europe; did we get dumber or cheaper after that?