Escalating Afghanistan Invasion a Fool’s Gambit
By Willis A. Carto
By Willis A. Carto
There’s something profoundly bizarre (but not so amusing) that the Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded to Barack Obama at precisely the time the not-quite-one-year-old president is poised to expand the American military presence in the traditional historical quagmire for empires known as Afghanistan.
Of course, the intent of the Nobel Prize committee was clearly political. It was more a slap in the face to former President George W. Bush and his insane conduct of American foreign policy than it was an award to Bush’s successor.
And there’s a particular irony here: Barack Obama promised “change” and many Americans voted for Obama because they wanted change.
That’s why the voters rejected John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. Americans were fed up with the international adventurism of the Republican Bush administration and knew that, under McCain, we would get that and much more, including almost certainly, an attack against Iran.
Thus, we now have Obama rejecting what the voters asked for and defying polls that say a majority of Americans think we should get out of Afghanistan.
Instead, we have the president of “change” doing his best to keep us in Afghanistan and in ever greater numbers.
You remember Afghanistan, don’t you? It’s that mineral-rich, geo-strategically-placed land of mountains and deserts in the Middle East where, throughout recorded history, other great empires have repeatedly gotten bogged down and into deep, deep trouble. And that, of course, is what’s happening right now to the American empire in its senseless struggle to occupy Afghanistan.
The Afghan venture, you’ll recall, was the kick-start of the so-called “war on terror” which then-President Bush and his cronies (including John McCain) seemed to hope (or, at least, they threatened) might last for generations. (And imagine all the profits for the arms manufacturers and bankers. What a bonanza.)
You'll notice, by the way, that the mass-media -- which has always been “big” for war, primarily because the same interests that control the media also profit from war—is leading Americans to believe the “debate” over Afghanistan is whether we should have 5,000 or 10,000 or 25,000 or 100,000 troops in Afghanistan.
While we’re being treated to this phony “debate,” there’s one other thing that seldom seems to be mentioned and that is why we are bogged down in the Middle East in the first place.
Again, it’s simple. The United States is entangled in the Middle East for one reason and one reason alone: America long ago abandoned the traditional nationalist principle first enunciated by our first president, George Washington, who specifically warned his fellow Americans, in his Farewell Address, against permanent alliances and showing favoritism toward any other nation.
But that’s what the United States has done. We have entered into a “special relationship” with Israel and our entire Middle East policy is centered on protecting Israel’s interests alone. American interests are not even cranked into consideration. If they were, the United States wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire in Afghanistan as we are today.
The war against Afghanistan, so we are told, is a war to punish the Islamic government of the Taliban for harboring the Islamic terrorists who we are told (although there’s a lot of serious and credible doubt about it) attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001.
What the media prefers to ignore is the fact that those Islamic terrorists attacked America (if indeed they did, and, as we said, there’s a lot of serious doubt about it) precisely because of America’s Middle East policies that are bound in to the interests of Israel.
The media doesn’t want Americans to think about the possibility that, quite simply, we should have never gone into Afghanistan and that, right now, we should get out.
In this context, what’s really interesting is that the Republican conservatives who are howling the loudest about Obama getting the Nobel prize are actually the ones who are lending their names and credibility to the effort by the president to send more young Americans off to fight and die in Afghanistan.
While the GOP is staging its “loyal opposition” theatrics against Obama in the realm of healthcare and government spending and other issues—it actually happens to be the Republicans in Congress and in policy-making networks in Washington who are helping the Democratic president in his effort to send more Americans off to the Middle East.
Why that is significant is this: as these Republicans are squealing about ever-increasing federal spending under the new Obama regime, declaring Obama a “socialist,” what they don’t seem to understand is an elementary point made by the late Lawrence Dennis: that war and military spending, more than anything else, to expand the size of government, its budget, its power. So those Republicans who are “fighting socialism” are actually helping bring it into being.
But you won’t find that reality pointed out in any “conservative” newspapers like The Washington Times or Human Events which pander to naïve folks who are still caught up in the phony old “left-right/liberal-conservative” spectrum that’s been used by the powers-that-be to
divide and misdirect Americans from uniting against the predatory plutocratic interests that control our money system and our mass media and use that influence to dominate our politics for their own benefit and to wage imperial wars to set in place their New World Order.
And, by the way, we’ve not even mentioned—until now—the continuing American presence in the senseless debacle known as Iraq.
Yes, we’re still in Iraq—or had you forgotten?
That is what the media wants: to make you forget that we have still yet to pull out of that tragic country where the United States waged a disastrous war that need not and should not have been fought, a war that was waged for one distinct reason: to protect the state of Israel against Iraq, which Israel perceived (rightly or not) to be perhaps its most dangerous Arab enemy. The Bush administration cast the invasion of Iraq and the destruction of the regime of Saddam Hussein as being part of the vaunted “war on terror” — a war against Islamic fundamentalist extremists who threatened the American way of life.
However, when Bush was calling for the head of Saddam Hussein, regularly reminding us that “Saddam killed his own people,” what Bush didn’t tell you was that Saddam was killing those very Islamic fundamentalists that Bush said were the target of Bush’s war on terror. So, in short, when it became convenient, Bush turned around and cast Saddam as the “bad guy” for doing what Bush said (when it was relevant to invading Afghanistan) was a good thing.
But then again, the truth or consistency doesn’t mean much to the imperial warmongers—those high priests of the New World Order—in their bid to make the entire planet their own Global Plantation.
American men and women are still dying in Iraq. And Iraq—once a thriving, forward-moving republic with one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East, once poised to be formally declared a “first world” nation—is now a cauldron of death, disease and destruction, internally fragmented—Balkanized, as they say—and rent with religious and ethnic strife, recurring acts of terrorism and violence.
And that is all thanks to George W. Bush, the eminent predecessor to the new Nobel Peace Prize winner who now seems to want to follow in Bush’s path and make things in Afghanistan even worse.
There is literally no possibility that we can win in Afghanistan. President Obama’s war is another expensive loser.
Of course, the intent of the Nobel Prize committee was clearly political. It was more a slap in the face to former President George W. Bush and his insane conduct of American foreign policy than it was an award to Bush’s successor.
And there’s a particular irony here: Barack Obama promised “change” and many Americans voted for Obama because they wanted change.
That’s why the voters rejected John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. Americans were fed up with the international adventurism of the Republican Bush administration and knew that, under McCain, we would get that and much more, including almost certainly, an attack against Iran.
Thus, we now have Obama rejecting what the voters asked for and defying polls that say a majority of Americans think we should get out of Afghanistan.
Instead, we have the president of “change” doing his best to keep us in Afghanistan and in ever greater numbers.
You remember Afghanistan, don’t you? It’s that mineral-rich, geo-strategically-placed land of mountains and deserts in the Middle East where, throughout recorded history, other great empires have repeatedly gotten bogged down and into deep, deep trouble. And that, of course, is what’s happening right now to the American empire in its senseless struggle to occupy Afghanistan.
The Afghan venture, you’ll recall, was the kick-start of the so-called “war on terror” which then-President Bush and his cronies (including John McCain) seemed to hope (or, at least, they threatened) might last for generations. (And imagine all the profits for the arms manufacturers and bankers. What a bonanza.)
You'll notice, by the way, that the mass-media -- which has always been “big” for war, primarily because the same interests that control the media also profit from war—is leading Americans to believe the “debate” over Afghanistan is whether we should have 5,000 or 10,000 or 25,000 or 100,000 troops in Afghanistan.
While we’re being treated to this phony “debate,” there’s one other thing that seldom seems to be mentioned and that is why we are bogged down in the Middle East in the first place.
Again, it’s simple. The United States is entangled in the Middle East for one reason and one reason alone: America long ago abandoned the traditional nationalist principle first enunciated by our first president, George Washington, who specifically warned his fellow Americans, in his Farewell Address, against permanent alliances and showing favoritism toward any other nation.
But that’s what the United States has done. We have entered into a “special relationship” with Israel and our entire Middle East policy is centered on protecting Israel’s interests alone. American interests are not even cranked into consideration. If they were, the United States wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire in Afghanistan as we are today.
The war against Afghanistan, so we are told, is a war to punish the Islamic government of the Taliban for harboring the Islamic terrorists who we are told (although there’s a lot of serious and credible doubt about it) attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001.
What the media prefers to ignore is the fact that those Islamic terrorists attacked America (if indeed they did, and, as we said, there’s a lot of serious doubt about it) precisely because of America’s Middle East policies that are bound in to the interests of Israel.
The media doesn’t want Americans to think about the possibility that, quite simply, we should have never gone into Afghanistan and that, right now, we should get out.
In this context, what’s really interesting is that the Republican conservatives who are howling the loudest about Obama getting the Nobel prize are actually the ones who are lending their names and credibility to the effort by the president to send more young Americans off to fight and die in Afghanistan.
While the GOP is staging its “loyal opposition” theatrics against Obama in the realm of healthcare and government spending and other issues—it actually happens to be the Republicans in Congress and in policy-making networks in Washington who are helping the Democratic president in his effort to send more Americans off to the Middle East.
Why that is significant is this: as these Republicans are squealing about ever-increasing federal spending under the new Obama regime, declaring Obama a “socialist,” what they don’t seem to understand is an elementary point made by the late Lawrence Dennis: that war and military spending, more than anything else, to expand the size of government, its budget, its power. So those Republicans who are “fighting socialism” are actually helping bring it into being.
But you won’t find that reality pointed out in any “conservative” newspapers like The Washington Times or Human Events which pander to naïve folks who are still caught up in the phony old “left-right/liberal-conservative” spectrum that’s been used by the powers-that-be to
divide and misdirect Americans from uniting against the predatory plutocratic interests that control our money system and our mass media and use that influence to dominate our politics for their own benefit and to wage imperial wars to set in place their New World Order.
And, by the way, we’ve not even mentioned—until now—the continuing American presence in the senseless debacle known as Iraq.
Yes, we’re still in Iraq—or had you forgotten?
That is what the media wants: to make you forget that we have still yet to pull out of that tragic country where the United States waged a disastrous war that need not and should not have been fought, a war that was waged for one distinct reason: to protect the state of Israel against Iraq, which Israel perceived (rightly or not) to be perhaps its most dangerous Arab enemy. The Bush administration cast the invasion of Iraq and the destruction of the regime of Saddam Hussein as being part of the vaunted “war on terror” — a war against Islamic fundamentalist extremists who threatened the American way of life.
However, when Bush was calling for the head of Saddam Hussein, regularly reminding us that “Saddam killed his own people,” what Bush didn’t tell you was that Saddam was killing those very Islamic fundamentalists that Bush said were the target of Bush’s war on terror. So, in short, when it became convenient, Bush turned around and cast Saddam as the “bad guy” for doing what Bush said (when it was relevant to invading Afghanistan) was a good thing.
But then again, the truth or consistency doesn’t mean much to the imperial warmongers—those high priests of the New World Order—in their bid to make the entire planet their own Global Plantation.
American men and women are still dying in Iraq. And Iraq—once a thriving, forward-moving republic with one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East, once poised to be formally declared a “first world” nation—is now a cauldron of death, disease and destruction, internally fragmented—Balkanized, as they say—and rent with religious and ethnic strife, recurring acts of terrorism and violence.
And that is all thanks to George W. Bush, the eminent predecessor to the new Nobel Peace Prize winner who now seems to want to follow in Bush’s path and make things in Afghanistan even worse.
There is literally no possibility that we can win in Afghanistan. President Obama’s war is another expensive loser.
Who Remembers Neutrality Act?
By Willis A. Carto
By Willis A. Carto
During its first 138 years, the U.S. was involved in only three wars against foreign countries—all minor in scope and all for reasons of national interest. In just the next 67 years, U.S. troops have been embroiled in four major conflicts (three in the last 35 years alone), all because of a change in foreign policy.That policy is based on the premise that the U.S., as the world’s richest, most powerful nation, must accept the role of peacemaker and planet care-taker. This policy of intervention is about to drag the U.S. into another area of conflict—the Mideast. . . .
In 1919 Congress voted against U.S. participation in the League of Nations.This took the U.S. out of a direct role in settling disagreements between foreign countries, and once again America was on the sensible course of neutrality.
When Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Congress passed and President Franklin Roosevelt signed an effective Neutrality Act. Its heart and strength is stated thus:
Upon the outbreak or during the progress of war between, or among, two or more foreign states, the president shall proclaim such fact, and it shall thereafter be unlawful to export arms, ammunition, or implements of war from any place in the United States, or possessions of the United States, to any port of such belligerent states, or to any neutral port for transshipment to, or for the use of, a belligerent country.
This act was amended several times but in essence the provisions ensuring neutrality should be observed today, although obviously they are not...
For this essay in its entirety, plus lots more from Carto, we recommend An Appeal to Reason: A Compendium of the Writings of Willis A. Carto, edited by Michael Collins Piper. This An Appeal to Reason (soft-cover, 284 pages, #511) is available from THE BARNES REVIEW, P.O. Box 15877, Washington, D.C. 20003. Prices are as follows: One copy is $25, 2-9 copies are $23 each. 10 or more copies are $20 each. Add $3 for one book inside the U.S. More than one book add: $5 S&H up to $50; $10 from $50.01 to $100. $15 S&H on orders over $100. For S&H outside U.S. email TBRca@aol.com. Send payment with request to above address or call 1-877-773-9077 toll free to charge to Visa or MC. TBR subscribers may take 10% off price of book.
In 1919 Congress voted against U.S. participation in the League of Nations.This took the U.S. out of a direct role in settling disagreements between foreign countries, and once again America was on the sensible course of neutrality.
When Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Congress passed and President Franklin Roosevelt signed an effective Neutrality Act. Its heart and strength is stated thus:
Upon the outbreak or during the progress of war between, or among, two or more foreign states, the president shall proclaim such fact, and it shall thereafter be unlawful to export arms, ammunition, or implements of war from any place in the United States, or possessions of the United States, to any port of such belligerent states, or to any neutral port for transshipment to, or for the use of, a belligerent country.
This act was amended several times but in essence the provisions ensuring neutrality should be observed today, although obviously they are not...
For this essay in its entirety, plus lots more from Carto, we recommend An Appeal to Reason: A Compendium of the Writings of Willis A. Carto, edited by Michael Collins Piper. This An Appeal to Reason (soft-cover, 284 pages, #511) is available from THE BARNES REVIEW, P.O. Box 15877, Washington, D.C. 20003. Prices are as follows: One copy is $25, 2-9 copies are $23 each. 10 or more copies are $20 each. Add $3 for one book inside the U.S. More than one book add: $5 S&H up to $50; $10 from $50.01 to $100. $15 S&H on orders over $100. For S&H outside U.S. email TBRca@aol.com. Send payment with request to above address or call 1-877-773-9077 toll free to charge to Visa or MC. TBR subscribers may take 10% off price of book.
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