For What, All These Wars?
"I wish to express my deep regret for the reported incident. ... I extend to you and the Afghan people my sincere apologies."
As President Obama sent this letter of apology to Hamid Karzai for the burning by U.S. troops of Qurans that were used to smuggle notes between Afghan prisoners, two U.S. soldiers were murdered in reprisal.
Saturday, a U.S. colonel and a major working in the Interior Ministry were shot dead by an Afghan protesting the desecration of the Islamic holy book. All U.S. officers have been pulled out of the ministries in Kabul.
Sunday, seven U.S. troops on base were wounded by a grenade.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. John Allen, commander in Afghanistan, have also offered their apologies.
Remarkable. After fighting for 10 years, investing $500 billion, and losing nearly 2,000 dead and many more wounded and maimed to save Afghanistan from a Taliban future, America is issuing apologies to the regime and people we are fighting and dying to defend?
And how has Obama's apology been received?
Abdul Sattar Khawasi, a member of Parliament, stood with 20 other members to declare, "Americans are invaders, and jihad against Americans is an obligation." He urged mullahs to "urge the people ... to wage war against Americans."
In what other war would we have tolerated this from an elected leader of a government we had sent an army of 100,000 to protect?
Undeniably, the soldiers who burned the Qurans blundered. Yet there is no evidence that it was malicious. If vandals desecrate a Bible in America, burning and replacing the holy book would not be regarded a valid excuse for mayhem and murder.
If Afghans cannot understand this mistake and have no other way to express their rage than rioting and ranting, "Death to America!" what kind of raw material are we working with in building a Western-style democracy in any foreseeable century?
Two pertinent questions needs to be put.
While keeping Afghanistan free of the Taliban is a desirable goal, what vital U.S. interest would be imperiled should the Taliban take over again, now that al-Qaida is largely gone?
What price in blood and billions should we expend on what appears a dubious enterprise at best -- creating a pro-American democracy in a country that seems mired in some distant century?
It is time we took inventory of all of these wars we have fought since the Army of Desert Storm restored the emir of Kuwait to his throne.
That 1991 war was seen as a triumph of American arms and a model of the global cooperation to come in establishing the New World Order of George H.W. Bush.
But the savage sanctions we imposed on a defeated Iraq and the planting of U.S. bases on Saudi soil that is home to Mecca was a casus belli for Osama bin Laden. Ten years after the triumph of Bush I, he brought down the twin towers.
This atrocity caused us to plunge into Afghanistan to dump over the Taliban and eradicate or expel al-Qaida. We succeeded, then decided to stay on and build a nation. After 10 years, what have we accomplished to justify the immense price we have paid?
In 2003, George W. Bush, seeking to complete the work begun by his father, invaded Iraq. But Saddam had no role in 9/11 and was no threat to America. Iraq did not even have weapons of mass destruction.
Today, after eight years of war, 4,500 dead, 35,000 wounded and a trillion dollars sunk, the 15,000 Americans we left behind are largely holed up in the Green Zone, as Iraq descends into sectarian, civil and ethnic war.
What did it all profit us?
How goes Libya after the U.S.-NATO intervention to dethrone Moammar Gadhafi?
Here is the Rand Corp.'s Frederic Wehrey:
"A weak transitional government confronts armed militias. ... Defiant young men with heavy weapons control Libya's airports, harbors and oil installations. Tribes and smugglers rule desert areas south of the capital. Clashes among various militias for turf and political power rage. ...
"Libya teeters dangerously on the brink."
Now we see a push for intervention in Syria from Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman. That would make us allies of al-Qaida, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, all of which also seek the fall of Bashar al-Assad and the rise of a Sunni regime in Damascus.
But it is the clamor for a U.S. war on Iran that grows loudest.
But why, when the U.S. intelligence community still claims to have no hard evidence Iran has even decided to build a bomb?
Since Ronald Reagan went home, the United States has attacked or invaded Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq again, and Libya.
How have Americans benefited from all this war? How have the Chinese suffered these 20 years by not having been in on the action?
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William E. Odom, director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988 and a retired Army general, (now deceased) wrote a piece back in 2006 about how and why America should cut and run from these "sand wars" instead of stay, die and lose. I doubt many Americans ever heard from or knew about these intelligent voices in Washington, other than Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul, who spoke to these issues and vehemently disagreed with the ruling duoploy and the noisy neo-cons. Why are the arteries of communication so clogged in America that dissenting voices are not only ignored but silenced? God Bless Chronicles for being one of the doggedly, determined, conservative voices that refuses to speak non-sense to the public and only dollars and cents to their readers. May God give eternal rest to brave men like General Odom and bestow patriotic honors to courageous men like Pat Buchanan.
My heart is with our soldiers who by the nature of their honorable profession must carry out the orders of their superior overlords, orders, which in the case of the wars most recently fought and being fought, rest on immoral, unconstitutional and unnecessary policies and politics. I was privileged to work as a civilian linguist with a unit for several years. I came to love and to respect the men with whom I worked. In my years of teaching in numerous venues, I found them to be the most professional, the most curious and the most respectful of all of the students whom I had ever encountered. Elements of this unit have time and again found themselves in Kosovo, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and likely in places of which I am unaware. When a soldier puts on a uniform, he puts on death; for home and hearth, for kith and kin, and for blood and earth, he will lay down is life; and when he forfeits life or limb for such a cause, then he and we are honored; but when in his capacity as a professional he must lay those precious things down for the ignoble and evil purposes of the capricious cadres who command him, then what he gives as sacrifice is lost.
I could easily be tempted to pray that this empire be blooded into retreat in one of these bellicose encounters which it seeks and carries out; however, to do so would be evil because not the politicians, the bureaucrats, the bankers, the stock jobbers, the paper aristocracy, and the corporatists who set these things in motions would be killed and sore wounded but the soldiers. All that I can pray is that God in His Providence and in His grace will bring these Martian days to an end.
Great work Pat, your column is clean, direct and focused. It is also understated, which is cool because it serves to emphasize your point. I'm still steaming over the disgraceful apology by a four star Marine Corp general. I never thought I'd live to see the day when a U. S. general officer would betray his troops like that in the middle of an active battlefield. In my day, any honorable officer who was asked to betray his oath like that would have resigned or committed suicide before apologizing to a mob. I never expect much from Obama.
Mr. Peters:
You're right. Some of the finest folks I've ever known were my fellow soldiers, who would honorably sacrifice for their buddies. It now sickens me no end that their virtue of patriotism has been twisted and perverted to serve such ends as you describe.
Pat Buchanan, as usual, speaks the truth. And Messrs. Peters and Smith have written noble words.
When I was dragging M198s behind 900 series trucks in the desert, my friend, a fellow Devil Dog, was hot shotting around in his F-18. I left the Marines to come here to Rockford and he went to fly for the airlines. He recently went back in the Reserves to serve three months in Afghanistan flying VIPs (General Grades) around in a Gulfstream or a Citation. I caught up with him recently. His words: "Nothing good at all has come from our presence there. We need to leave now. Our legacy is a lot of dead and maimed." Coloring his outlook of course are the countless conversations he audited of despair for the Afghan War exchanged by the men he was shuttling to and fro. He then went on to tell me what everyone who reads this board knows: the extraordinary hemorrhaging of cash dollars. Everywhere they went they paid in new (nothing older than 2006) American bills. All landing fees at air airstrips, for example, cash bills.
I very much recommend this recent piece from Armed Forces Journal:
http://armedforcesjournal.com/2012/02/8904030
I agree with Mr. Peters the predisposition of most warriors is noble and made more so by their actual touching of the face of death here and now, which some body-present (and accounted for) experience in the great outdoors, provides as well.
So I am not in the least surprised Mr. Peters found our soldiers to be the best students in so many ways that he ever had the privilege to help via his valuable instruction.
Sadly in patently unnecessary wars as most wars are, on their conventional battlefields lethal motions of a very bloody nature are being entered into, though the real fields of engagement then and their action are therefore elsewhere.
These anti-democratic sand wars in the Middle East as voices at home are silenced. While ironically being waged in the name of democracy, have at least brought to our attention at another level the transparent and hypocritical obviousness of the unnecessary war.
This places us all in the contradictory position of both pitying and respecting our soldiers.
Along with so many others then one would agree with the poet: 'To this I witness call the fools of time, Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.' -w.s.
So, according to Pat Buchannan, Osama bin Laden brought down the Twin Towers. Let's put aside the overwhelming circumstantial evidence of Israel's and American-Israeli involvement and that the elaborate efforts at concealment provide powerful evidence of guilt and stick with the facts about the collapse of the Twin Towers and Building 7. Over 1,500 architects, structural engineers, metallurgists, chemists, demolition experts and others with relevant expertise (ae911truth) have said the official narrative of the 9/11 Commission and later NIST report on Building 7's mysterious collapse are false in nearly every respect. Pilots for 9/11 Truth have made mincemeat of the contention that hijackers who couldn't handle a Cessna 150 could make the maneuvers required. Any honest person who takes the time to read David Ray Griffin's Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7 must admit this building could only have come down at near free-fall speed due to controlled demolition. If Building 7 was so rigged, so were the Twin Towers. To wave this away as part of some "conspiracy theory" among tin-foil hat wearing kooks in light of the scientific facts, eyewitness accounts, and circumstantial evidence, all arguing to the most plausible explanation that it was controlled demolition and an inside job, strikes me as more cowardly than brave, and I rest my case by reminding you that resorting to ad hominems instead of addressing the evidence itself is powerful evidence of agreement.
The advantage is to the observer, false flags if so not novel. All governments therefore small, large today tomorrow are sadly, inevitably conspiracies. Question only being, do they 'conspire' as observer in behalf of the governed or at their expense.
It doesn't end there, in government large or small, there are cliques. Again as you would guess strongest clique dominates.
Let me say this as the facts aver and without disagreement are you primarily concerned with the governed?
I've been reading Pat Buchanan for years, and I am so glad that finally more people writing for Chronicles (hats down to Serge since the beginning) speaks the truth out. And the truth is very simple:
since the end of WW2 American soldiers killed hundred of thousands of INNOCENT people all over the globe. As per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations, American foreign policy wedged numerous operations and major wars with the following countries:
1950-1953 Korean War
1960-1975 Vietnam War
1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion
1983 Grenada
1989 US Invasion of Panama
1990-1991 Persian Gulf War
1995-1996 Intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina
1999 – present U.S. invasion and occupation of Serbia
2001 – present U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan
2003 – present U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq
2011 – omnipresent support for Libya “rebels”
None of these countries attacked USA, but he USA army and intelligence managed to devastate most of these countries for decades to come. And though presidents, strategists and generals maybe ones to blame, the guilt is equally shared by millions of “troops supporters” in which name and more or less silent support (maybe with the exception of Vietnam) these wars were fought.
And about the question “for what”, well we all know that answer very well, don't we? It best, try to connect the dots.
Ditto! Maybe US intelligence had not instrument it, but they definitely did not prevent it.