BOMB, RINSE, REPEAT …
It’s coming … and if you don’t believe us, just ask our “leaders.”
The name of the “enemy” may change, but the results will be the same … even if the U.S. government has to do the job itself.
We’re talking, of course, about another “9/11” – a reprise of the terrorist attacks launched against America on this day thirteen years ago. Thousands of people died in those attacks – in New York City, Washington, D.C. and a field in Pennsylvania – yet their government is still clueless about what really caused them. And how to keep it from happening again.
In response to 9/11, the U.S. military embarked on the “War on Terror” – a multi-theater engagement that has set taxpayers back an estimated $4-6 trillion and resulted in thousands of additional American deaths.
What’s been the outcome of that war?
Easy: We lost. Bad. Like, real bad.
Whatever “gains” were achieved against the “evildoers,” they have since been surrendered … and then some. Far from keeping America safe, the U.S.-led occupations and wars of aggression in the Middle East have given rise to a more potent strain of anti-American jihadism.
And what did we expect would happen? America has meddled – hypocritically and indiscriminately – in regions of the world where we have absolutely no compelling national interest or justification for intruding.
“Making the world safe for democracy?”
Please … our government (the CIA and State Department) routinely conspires to oust democratically elected leaders who do not bend to our will, which is exactly what happened in Ukraine earlier this year.
And again … we are not safer as a result of this meddling.
Our latest enemy is the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a group our government was seeking to empower in Syria this time a year ago. Seriously … last September 11 these guys were on our team.
As we noted in a recent piece, America’s war gods are “like dementia sufferers … except with a limitless expense account and absolutely no accountability.”
We know it’s not popular – especially on a day like September 11 – to speak this kind of truth. We’d probably be better off regurgitating the warmonger fiction that “they are coming for us.” Or following the lead of every politician under the sun – pumping out some heavy-hearted tribute containing all the manufactured earnestness and sincerity of a used car salesman spit-shining a bald tire.
We can’t do that, though … because that’s not truth.
The truth is America has responded to 9/11 by ramping up the same failed foreign policies that precipitated the attacks in the first place … while at the same time launching a wholesale “War on Freedom” against its own people (in the form of its clandestine domestic spying apparatus).
Former president George W. Bush was correct when he said “our way of life, our very freedom came under attack.”
He just picked the wrong enemy …
As we noted last September 11, the real victim of the attacks was your lost freedom. And the real villain continues to be the government suppressing those liberties at home and needlessly warmongering abroad.
American should absolutely defend its borders. Protect its core national interests. Protect its people. And if a documented, credible threat against the American homeland exists anywhere in the world, that threat should be eliminated – with overwhelming force. We believe in armed neutrality: Armed to the teeth. Put one of ours in the hospital, two of theirs in the morgue … you know?
But that’s not what we are doing … we are interfering in other countries’ domestic disputes in the name of world policing and nation building, without anything resembling proximity to our national interest.
And the more we continue to do that, the more the world will continue to turn against us … and the less safe all Americans will be.
36 comments
“… The truth is America has responded to 9/11 by ramping up the same failed foreign policies that precipitated the attacks in the first place …”
Please don’t confuse “America” with America when you really mean incompetent, stupid and foolish, spend thrift, clueless-in-the-extreme “government”.
In your stated case above it is big g’ment, the Military/Industrial/Media/Fascist Complex, that champions this serious slaughter all over the world to 1) enrich themselves and to 2) enrich themselves and, of course, to 3) enrich themselves at American’s expense … and has for the greater part of this and the last century.
One thing you have overlooked: The current administration has really stepped in it. The incompetence and stupidity is almost astounding. Oh, Bummer.
One thing you have overlooked: The total incompetence of the last administration.
Oh, yes, of course. … With rare, short term exceptions, every administration since World War II has kow-towed to the Military/Industrial/Media/neo-conservo-progressive-Fascist complex … ’cause that’s what the media manipulators have told them and us to vote for.
A chance remains to rid ourselves of the tyrannical g’ment: Abolish the IRS.
“… government is not the solution, government is the problem.” – President Ronald Reagan in His First Inaugural Address … and then He shrugged and did not kill the IRS.
(No one needs offer an immediate substitute for the IRS, we need to just get rid of it and them let g’ment dance and twist slowly in the wind until some washington dc-comic wisenheimer figures out a fix that is palatable to the owners of the country.)
That sounds like the GOP plan that never works.
With rare, short term exceptions, EVERY administration since World War II has kow-towed to the Military/Industrial/Media/neo-conservo-progressive-Fascist complex … Even republicrats. Even B. Obama. Even R. Reagan. Even J. Kennedy. … to this very day.
The military-industrial complex is out of control, but Wall Street’s an even bigger problem, and both parties are in bed with them, even more so the GOP. The Republican senators brought their bibs and kneepads when Jamie Dimon testified in June, 2012 in front of the Senate Banking Committee:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/senators-grovel-embarrass-themselves-at-dimon-hearing-20120615
Dimon’s JP Morgan had just inexplicably “lost” >2 BILLION investor dollars, and they treated him like a rock star. Democrats didn’t, plain and simple.
“The military-industrial complex is out of control, but Wall Street’s an even bigger problem, and both parties are in bed with them, even more so the GOP. … ”
Of course. However one might note that for the last six years, the US Treasury Department and the US Federal Reserve System have been entirely under the control of Goldman Sacks and other Wall Streak Big [D] contributors to the “progressive” Fascists wannabes… Tiny Timmy and Big Ben and BHO. Republicrats have had very little say in these matter, thusly spending on crony capitalism projects and scams and inflation have run wildly amok.
Look at which party gets the majority of Wall Street’s political donations. Hint: it’s not Democrats.
Not entirely true. The democrats are 1) richer, 2) receive more nationwide from the (fed and local) banks, brokers, real estate agents, paper flippers, etc. etc. than the republicrats.
More super-rich Americans are Republican, but the majority of Wall Street’s donations varies from one party to the other. I think Republicans are their bet this year:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/01/wall-street-republicans/
Gramm, Leach, and Bliley are all Republicans, i.e. the lower regulations party that undid Glass-Steagall and paved the way for the real estate crash under GeeDubya.
You’ll probably catch a lot of chit for your comments Will, but just remember the Biblical saying about a prophet never being recognized in his own time or his own land.
Your post is spot-on.
I sometimes get a feeling that Fits is rooting for ISIS and Obama?
No, I think he is actually against them. The problem is, that our government (to include Obama, McCain, Lindsey, and no telling who else) has been cozying up to the cruds who are currently known as ISIS. This is a mistake our country (really our government) has been making at least since the early 1980’s when we were arming people like Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussien, and others because we thought the enemy of our enemy was our friend. As you should know by now, that didn’t work out well for us. Not one bit wiser, we are pulling the same shit in the Middle East now with the above suspects being front and center in the latest round of shenanigans.
Will we ever wake up and quit repeating the same mistakes?
Keep your head buried in the sand, but don’t be surprised when some “peace loving Muslim” slices and dices your ass which is sticking up.
If we focused on protecting our own borders we would not have to worry about Muslims slicing our ass. Taliban, Al Qaieda, ISIS, the names of the ragheads keep changing so that we have a “new enemy” to destroy since it would not go over so well to just declare an eternal presence on Arab soil. If Israel can protect their borders and they are in the very midst of the tension, then why can’t we?
Why? Leftist radicals like Obama. Elect Democrat governor’s like Sheheen or “0”% Tommy Ervin Williams and
SÇ will become a haven illegals and terrorists.
Closing our borders is just another failure of this administration and several others both (D) and (R). That should be our first priority then all the others pretty much fall in line.
Hi Rogue! The thing is, our government keeps funding and supplying these “peace loving Muslims” because we think they are going to kill a few of the ones who we really hate or who really hate us. The problem is, those “nice” ones we keep arming and funding always seem to wind up being our enemy and using the munitions and funding we gave them against us. We need to get out of the business of playing one side against the other because it always blows up on us.
Then there is the Archie Bunker strategy : Give everyone a gun and lots of ammo. Then come back in a few years and clean up what is left. After Vietnam and now Iraq and Afghanistan. I have come to the conclusion our govt. will start the fight then another administration comes in and wastes what the other did. Wastes as leaving our best and brightest dead and wounded plus all the equipment that we tax payers bought.
Exactly!!!!
It’s bullshit like this that makes me so thankful your reputation is now lower than whale dung: South Carolina never has to worry about you having access to real power ever again.
We can’t be the world’s policeman and if we didn’t need Middle Eastern oil, we wouldn’t have to be. If we put as much effort into weaning ourselves off of foreign oil, as we do kissing Arab ass, we would be there already. And no, we wouldn’t need to destroy Alaska’s wilderness to do it either.
For real! We could start by ceasing the sale and shipment of our home “grown” oil to foreign countries.
We? Do you mean “wee-wee”, kimosaby? “We” actually do have to make our oil available to foreign countries, just as those foreign countries need to make their resources available to us.
That’s called international trade. If “we” were to stop selling oil to, say, Japan, then the Japanese manufacturers, even those with mfg. plants here in the States, would have to raise their prices to us. Duh!
You see, Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand works internationally, too, and often quite rapidly. Even hinting that “we” might close the oil spigot, will send the world oil prices up, pressuring Japan, China, Singapore, Germany, France, England, Brazil, … to increase their prices of goods to us … And no one wants US$5 dollar Chiquita bananas.
We don’t need foreign oil. Well, technically Mexico and Canada are foreign.
The folks that run our government (think the likes of Dick Cheney, the Bushes and all politicians that are on the payroll of oil related interests, such as the oil companies, the Saudis, the Gulf States, monied interests in *our* Gulf States etc.) have a vested interest in keeping oil prices high. Understand this…and the last 25 years of foreign policy in the Middle East will suddenly make a lot of sense.
Interestingly enough, TBG will wager that you, also, think that high oil prices are a good thing…albeit for “environmental” reasons.
Boomerang 101 909…. *
*[sorry…couldn’t help myself…]
I listened to Rush Limbaugh some today. I was eating in my car, and Howard was a re-run, so why not.
Rush went on for at least 30 minutes stating how correct GW Bush was with respect to stating what would happen if we pulled out of Iraq early. And to that point, he was correct–Bush called it correctly. Bush said if we left early, we’d waste lives and eventually have to go back. And here we are.
But the part Rush never talked about, never mentioned, was why we went to Iraq in the first place. What was the reason? WMD’s? Oil? Public redirection? Who knows. The question that came to my mind was what if we had spent the same resources on going after our real attackers in Afghanistan, and let Saddam be, well, Saddam? Putting it bluntly, Saddam seemed to be able to handle his savages, as he was one. Are we better off without him?
The thing about the “truth” in Bush’s prediction about what would happen if we left Iraq “early” is, it would have happened whether we left then or ten years from now, or fifty years from now. The people in that region are generally savages who know nothing but killing and brutalizing each other, when a common enemy such as the US or allied forces are not around to receive that treatment.
If we just would exercise the good sense to stay the hell out of there, we could save those countless lives of military women and men. Like every major conflict since the end of WWII, we lost there and we will continue to lose unless and until our “leaders” allow our fighting men and women to kick ass and finish the job they started. I don’t see that happening so let the savages have at each other.
President bush’s goofy kid and his pal Deadeye should’ve thought of that in early March, 2003.
I’ll not disagree with you. When baby Bush started Gulf War Part II, I was initially for it. Like many, after 9-11, I was ready to see some Muslim blood in those crap hole countries shed. I knew it was going to end up much like Korea (a draw), Vietnam (a loss), or Gulf War I (at best, a draw), when baby Bush changed the name of the operation from “Operation Infinite Justice” to something else because it was “offensive to Islam”. Apparently in Islam, only Allah can dispense infinite justice. Yep, the writing was on the wall, we were going to lose this one and it had only just begun by a day or two.
That told me all I needed to know about W’s “resolve” to actually win the war. The rules of engagement under him were ridiculous, with our troops having more restrictive ROE’s in a combat zone than our police here at home had when engaging armed criminals. It only got worse under Obama.
For years Bush and his supporters kept bleating that “Stay The Course” bullshit. It was pretty obvious that it was bullshit and only served to make the MIC richer.
The war in Afghanistan after the al Qaeda suicide attacks of 9/11 was the ONLY US response, but the US shot itself in the foot invading Iraq and deposing Saddam, as ISIL and other unfortunate developments have clearly shown. Shrub’s father had much better sense.
…we’d waste lives and eventually have to go back. And here we are.
We don’t *have* to go back there.
“Are we better off without him?”
Ask the families of all the dead service men and women killed in that unjust war.
Ask the families of all of the innocent Iraqis (many of them children) killed in that unjust war.
Ask yourself – how are we better off without him?
“And here we are.”
And here (at home) is where we should have stayed.
Here (at home) is where we were when al Qaeda decided to hijack and crash 4 US airliners and murder thousands of innocent people.
… and rumors persist (and grow stronger) to this day that 9-11 was a “false flag” operation, supported by our government to “legitimize” an invasion of Iraq. When I first heard it, I balked at such a “ridiculous” notion. Now, I’m not so sure.
These guys were very sure that their 9/11/2001 Planes Operation was their third suicide attack on the evil US infidel in ~37 months:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW8_Zbsirdw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWVC4JBjtEE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6obQ5naNn0
From OBL’s 1998 (second) fatwa: “The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies-civilians and military-is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, ‘and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,’ and ‘fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God [blah, blah, blah…]'”
I’m sure the fat druggie also failed to mention that President Obama wasn’t a signatory to Shrub & al-Maliki’s 2008 Iraq Status of Forces Agreement and its clear timeline for complete US troop withdrawal by the end of 2012.