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<h1>US War A Record Of Unparalleled Failure</h1>
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<div class="cat-date-line"><span class="cat-date-line2"><a
href="http://www.popularresistance.org/category/educate/"
title="View all posts in Educate!" rel="category tag">Educate!</a></span>
<span class="cat-date-line3"> <a
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rel="tag">Foreign Policy</a>, <a
href="http://www.popularresistance.org/tag/policy/"
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<span class="cat-date-line4">By Tom Engelhardt, <a
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175854/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_a_record_of_unparalleled_failure/#more"
target="_blank">www.tomdispatch.com</a><br>
June 12th, 2014</span><br>
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<p><big><big>The United States has been at war — major
boots-on-the-ground conflicts and minor interventions,
firefights, air strikes, drone assassination campaigns,
occupations, special ops raids, proxy conflicts, and covert
actions — nearly nonstop since the Vietnam War began. That’s
more than half a century of experience with war,
American-style, and yet few in our world bother to draw the
obvious conclusions.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Given the historical record, those conclusions should
be staring us in the face. They are, however, the words that
can’t be said in a country committed to a military-first
approach to the world, a continual build-up of its forces, an
emphasis on pioneering work in the development and deployment
of the latest destructive technology, and a repetitious
cycling through styles of war from full-scale invasions and
occupations to counterinsurgency, proxy wars, and back again.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>So here are five straightforward lessons — none
acceptable in what passes for discussion and debate in this
country — that could be drawn from that last half century of
every kind of American warfare:</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>1. No matter how you define American-style war or its
goals, it doesn’t work. Ever.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>2. No matter how you pose the problems of our world, it
doesn’t solve them. Never.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>3. No matter how often you cite the use of military
force to “stabilize” or “protect” or “liberate” countries or
regions, it is a destabilizing force.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>4. No matter how regularly you praise the American way
of war and its “warriors,” the U.S. military is incapable of
winning its wars.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>5. No matter how often American presidents claim that
the U.S. military is “the finest fighting force in history,”
the evidence is in: it isn’t.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>And here’s a bonus lesson: if as a polity we were to
take these five no-brainers to heart and stop fighting endless
wars, which drain us of national treasure, we would also have
a long-term solution to the Veterans Administration
health-care crisis. It’s not the sort of thing said in our
world, but the VA is in a crisis of financing and caregiving
that, in the present context, cannot be solved, no matter whom
you hire or fire. The only long-term solution would be to
stop fighting losing wars that the American people will pay
for decades into the future, as the cost in broken bodies and
broken lives is translated into medical care and dumped on the
VA.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><a name="more"></a></big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><strong>Heroes and Turncoats</strong></big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>One caveat. Think whatever you want about war and
American war-making, but keep in mind that we are inside an
enormous propaganda machine of <a
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175423/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich,_playing_ball_with_the_pentagon/"
target="_blank">militarism</a>, even if we barely
acknowledge the space in our lives that it fills. Inside it,
only certain opinions, certain thoughts, are acceptable, or
even in some sense possible.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Take for an example the recent freeing of Sergeant Bowe
Bergdahl from five years as a captive of the Haqqani network.
Much controversy has surrounded it, in part because he was
traded for five former Taliban officials long kept uncharged
and untried on the American <a
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174842/karen_greenberg_guantanamo_forever"
target="_blank">Devil’s Island</a> at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
It has been suggested that Sgt. Bergdahl deserted his post and
his unit in rural Afghanistan, simply walked away — which for
opponents of the deal and of President Obama makes the “trade
for terrorists” all the more shameful. Our options when it
comes to what we know of Bergdahl’s actions are essentially to
decry him as a “<a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/02/bowe-bergdahl-release-anger-colleagues"
target="_blank">turncoat</a>” or near-voluntary “<a
href="http://time.com/2819645/bergdahl-terrorist-hostage-pow/"
target="_blank">terrorist prisoner</a>” or ignore them, go
into a “support the troops” mode, and hail him as a “hero” of
the war. And yet there is a third option.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><a
href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/americas-last-prisoner-of-war-20120607"
target="_blank">According to</a> his father, in the period
before he was captured, his emails home reflected <a
href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bergdahls-emails-reveal-extent-of-us-failure-9474557.html"
target="_blank">growing disillusionment</a> with the
military. (“The U.S. army is the biggest joke the world has
to laugh at. It is the army of liars, backstabbers, fools,
and bullies. The few good SGTs [sergeants] are getting out as
soon as they can, and they are telling us privates to do the
same.”) He had also evidently grown increasingly
uncomfortable as well with the American war in that country.
(“I am sorry for everything here. These people need help, yet
what they get is the most conceited country in the world
telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid,
that they have no idea how to live.”) When he departed his
base, he may even have <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/us/us-soldier-srgt-bowe-bergdahl-of-idaho-pow-vanished-angered-his-unit.html"
target="_blank">left a note</a> behind expressing such
sentiments. He had reportedly <a
href="http://www.democracynow.org/2014/6/3/reporter_bowe_bergdahls_fellow_soldiers_questioned"
target="_blank">told</a> someone in his unit earlier, “If
this deployment is lame… I’m just going to walk off into the
mountains of Pakistan.”</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>That’s what we know. There is much that we <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/06/world/asia/bowe-bergdahl-walked-away-before-military-report-says.html"
target="_blank">don’t know</a>. However, what if, having
concluded that the war was no favor to Afghans or Americans
and he shouldn’t participate in it, he had, however naively,
walked away from it without his weapon and, as it turned out,
not into freedom but directly into captivity? That Sgt.
Bergdahl might have been neither a military-style hero, nor a
turncoat, but someone who voted with his feet on the merits of
war, American-style, in Afghanistan is not an option that can
be <a
href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/180144/bowe-bergdahl-and-honorable-history-war-deserters"
target="_blank">discussed calmly</a> here. Similarly,
anyone who took such a position here, not just in terms of our
disastrous almost 13-year Afghan War, but of American
war-making generally, would be seen as another kind of
turncoat. However Americans may feel about specific wars,
walking away from war, American-style, and the U.S. military
as it is presently configured is not a fit subject for
conversation, nor an option to be considered.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>It’s been a commonplace of <a
href="http://www.voanews.com/content/former-us-officials-see-war-fatigue-from-afghan-conflict-138424439/168400.html"
target="_blank">official opinion</a> and <a
href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/07/afghanistan-war-fatigue-hits-new-highs-now-matching-levels-last-seen-in-iraq/"
target="_blank">polling data</a> for some time that the
American public is “exhausted” with our recent wars, but far
too much can be read into that. Responding to such a mood,
the president, his administration, and the Pentagon have been
in a <a
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175557nick_turse_changing_face_of_empire"
target="_blank">years-long process</a> of “pivoting” from
major wars and counterinsurgency campaigns to drone wars,
special operations raids, and proxy wars across huge swaths of
the planet (even while planning <a
href="http://news.yahoo.com/west-ponders-stop-fight-great-war-113159434.html"
target="_blank">for future wars</a> of a very different kind
continues). But war itself and the U.S. military remain high
on the American agenda. Military or militarized solutions
continue to be the go-to response to global problems, the only
question being: How much or how little? (In what passes for
debate in this country, the president’s opponents <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-obamas-weakness-emboldens-putin/2014/03/03/28def926-a2e2-11e3-84d4-e59b1709222c_story.html"
target="_blank">regularly</a> <a
href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/29/former-vice-president-cheney-obama-is-very-very-weak-president/"
target="_blank">label</a> him and his administration “<a
href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/condi-rice-blasts-obama-weakness-leadership_786123.html"
target="_blank">weak</a>” for not doubling down on war, from
the Ukraine and Syria to <a
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/27/us-usa-afghanistan-obama-idUSKBN0E71WQ20140527"
target="_blank">Afghanistan</a>).</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><a
href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608461548/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20"
target="_blank"><img scale="0"
src="cid:part35.08060403.03030005@comcast.net" alt=""
align="left" hspace="6" vspace="6"></a>Meanwhile,
investment in the military’s future and its capacity to make
war on a global scale remains <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/07/everything-chuck-hagel-needs-to-know-about-the-defense-budget-in-charts/"
target="_blank">staggeringly beyond</a> that of any other
power or <a
href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/military-spending-cuts/u-s-military-spending-dwarfs-rest-world-n37461"
target="_blank">combination of powers</a>. No other country
comes faintly close, not the Russians, nor the Chinese, nor
the Europeans just now being encouraged to up their military
game by President Obama who recently <a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/03/obama-pledge-military-europe-ukraine-crisis"
target="_blank">pledged</a> a billion dollars to strengthen
the U.S. military presence in Eastern Europe.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>In such a context, to suggest the sweeping failure of
the American military over these last decades without sapping
support for the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex
would involve making the most breathtaking stab-in-the-back
argument in the historical record. This was tried after the
Vietnam War, which engendered a vast antiwar movement at
home. It was at least conceivable at the time to blame defeat
on that movement, a “liberal” media, and lily-livered,
micromanaging politicians. Even then, however, the
stab-in-the-back version of the war never quite stuck and in
all subsequent wars, support for the military among the
political class and everywhere else has been so high, the
obligatory need to “support the troops” — left, right, and
center — so great that such an explanation would have been
ludicrous.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><strong>A Record of Failure to Stagger the Imagination<br>
</strong></big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>The only option left was to ignore what should have
been obvious to all. The result has been a record of failure
that should stagger the imagination and remarkable silence on
the subject. So let’s run through these points one at a time.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><em>1. American-style war doesn’t work.</em> Just ask
yourself: Are there fewer terrorists or more in our world
almost 13 years after the 9/11 attacks? Are al-Qaeda-like
groups more or less common? Are they more or less well
organized? Do they have more or fewer members? The answers
to those questions are obvious: more, more, more, and more.
In fact, according to a new RAND report, between 2010 and 2013
alone, jihadist groups grew by <a
href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/seth-jones-the-accelerating-spread-of-terrorism-1401837824"
target="_blank">58%</a>, their fighters doubled, and their
attacks nearly tripled.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>On September 12, 2001, al-Qaeda was a relatively small
organization with a few camps in arguably the most feudal and
backward country on the planet, and tiny numbers of adherents
scattered elsewhere around the world. Today, al-Qaeda-style
outfits and jihadist groups control significant parts of
Syria, <a
href="http://news.antiwar.com/2014/06/09/al-qaeda-in-iraq-seizes-provincial-govt-headquarters-in-mosul/"
target="_blank">Iraq</a>, Pakistan, and even Yemen, and are
thriving and <a
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/nick_turse_blowback_central"
target="_blank">spreading</a> in parts of Africa as well.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Or try questions like these: Is Iraq a peaceful,
liberated state allied with and under Washington’s aegis, with
“<a
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174807/engelhardt_the_great_american_disconnect"
target="_blank">enduring camps</a>” filled with U.S. troops
on its territory? Or is it a riven, <a
href="http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2014/06/07/carnage-across-iraq-leaves-184-killed-183-wounded/"
target="_blank">embattled</a>, dilapidated country whose
government is <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/14/iraq-iran-ties_n_1664728.html"
target="_blank">close to Iran</a> and some of whose
Sunni-dominated areas are <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/06/world/middleeast/samarra-strike-sunni-militants-storm-central-iraqi-city.html"
target="_blank">under the control</a> of a group that is
more extreme than al-Qaeda? Is Afghanistan a peaceful,
thriving, liberated land under the American aegis, or are
Americans still fighting there almost 13 years later against
the Taliban, an impossible-to-defeat minority movement it once
destroyed and then, because it couldn’t stop fighting the “war
on terror,” <a
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175837/tomgram%3A_anand_gopal,_how_to_lose_a_war_that_wasn%27t_there/"
target="_blank">helped revive</a>? Is Washington now
supporting a weak, corrupt central government in a country
that once again is planting <a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/13/afghanistan-record-opium-crop-poppies-un"
target="_blank">record opium crops</a>?</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>But let’s not belabor the point. Who, except a few
neocons still plunking for the glories of “the surge” in Iraq,
would claim military victory for this country, even of a
limited sort, anywhere at any time in this century?</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><em>2. American-style wars don’t solve problems. </em>
In these years, you could argue that not a single U.S.
military campaign or militarized act ordered by Washington
solved a single problem anywhere. In fact, it’s possible that
just about every military move Washington has made only
increased the burden of problems on this planet. To make the
case, you don’t even have to focus on the obvious like, for
example, the way a special operations and <a
href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/death-from-above-how-american-drone-strikes-are-devastating-yemen-20140414"
target="_blank">drone campaign</a> in Yemen has actually <a
href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/6/al-qaeda-on-rise-despite-us-support-to-yemen/"
target="_blank">al-Qaeda-ized</a> some of that country’s
rural areas. Take instead a rare Washington “success”: the
killing of Osama bin Laden in a special ops raid in
Abbottabad, Pakistan. (And leave aside the way even that act
was over-militarized: an unarmed Bin Laden was shot down in
his Pakistani lair largely, it’s <a
href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/05/06/why-osama-bin-laden-was-killed-by-navy-seals-and-not-taken-alive.html"
target="_blank">plausible to assume</a>, because officials
in Washington feared what once would have been the American
way — putting him on trial in a U.S. civilian court for his
crimes.) We now know that, in the hunt for bin Laden, the CIA
launched a fake hepatitis B vaccinationproject. Though it
proved of no use, once revealed it made local jihadists so
nervous about medical health teams that they began killing
groups of polio vaccination workers, an urge that has since
spread to Boko Haram-controlled areas of Nigeria. In this
way, <a
href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-cia-fake-vaccination-campaign-endangers-us-all/"
target="_blank">according to</a> Columbia University public
health expert Leslie Roberts, “the distrust sowed by the sham
campaign in Pakistan could conceivably postpone polio
eradication for 20 years, leading to 100,000 more cases that
might otherwise not have occurred.” The CIA has since <a
href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/05/19/cia_promises_no_more_fake_vaccination_campaigns_after_bin_laden_raid_linked.html"
target="_blank">promised</a> not to do it again, but too
late — and who at this point would believe the Agency anyway?
This was, to say the least, an unanticipated consequence of
the search for bin Laden, but blowback everywhere, invariably
unexpected, has been a hallmark of American campaigns of all
sorts.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Similarly, the NSA’s surveillance regime, another form
of global intervention by Washington, has — experts are
convinced — done <a
href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/no-doubt-about-nsas-impact-yeah-there"
target="_blank">little</a> or<a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/23/obama-cant-point-to-a-single-time-the-nsa-call-records-program-prevented-a-terrorist-attack/"
target="_blank">nothing</a> to protect Americans from terror
attacks. It has, however, done a great deal to damage the <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/07/technology/internet-giants-erect-barriers-to-spy-agencies.html"
target="_blank">interests</a> of America’s <a
href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/04/opinion/kehl-bankston-nsa-surveillance/"
target="_blank">tech corporations</a> and to increase <a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/04/germany-inquiry-nsa-tapping-angela-merkel-phone"
target="_blank">suspicion</a> and anger over Washington’s
policies even among allies. And by the way, congratulations
are due on one of the latest military moves of the Obama
administration, the sending of U.S. military <a
href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/05/u-s-sending-small-military-team-to-nigeria-to-help-plan-search-for-girls-held-by-militants/"
target="_blank">teams</a>and <a
href="http://www.voanews.com/content/us-drone-flying-from-chad-in-search-for-missing-nigerian-girls/1920535.html"
target="_blank">drones</a> into Nigeria and neighboring
countries to help rescue those girls kidnapped by the
extremist group Boko Haram. The rescue was a remarkable
success… oops, <em>didn’t happen</em> (and we don’t even know
yet what the blowback will be).</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><em>3. American-style war is a destabilizing force. </em>
Just look at the effects of American war in the twenty-first
century. It’s clear, for instance, that the U.S. invasion of
Iraq in 2003 unleashed a brutal, bloody, Sunni-Shiite civil
war across the region (as well as the Arab Spring, one might
argue). One result of that invasion and the subsequent
occupation, as well as of the wars and civil wars that
followed: the deaths of hundreds of thousands of <a
href="http://web.mit.edu/humancostiraq/" target="_blank">Iraqis</a>,
<a
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/31/us-syria-crisis-toll-idUSBRE9BU0FA20131231"
target="_blank">Syrians</a>, and Lebanese, while major areas
of <a
href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/in-the-war-on-terrorism-only-alqaida-thrives-9506723.html"
target="_blank">Syria</a> and some parts of <a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/20/the-bloody-rise-of-isis-in-iraq/"
target="_blank">Iraq</a> have fallen into the hands of armed
supporters of al-Qaeda or, in one major case, a group that
didn’t find that organization <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/al-qaeda-disavows-any-ties-with-radical-islamist-isis-group-in-syria-iraq/2014/02/03/2c9afc3a-8cef-11e3-98ab-fe5228217bd1_story.html"
target="_blank">extreme enough</a>. A significant part of
the oil heartlands of the planet is, that is, being
destabilized.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Meanwhile, the U.S. war in Afghanistan and the CIA’s
drone assassination campaign in the tribal borderlands of
neighboring Pakistan have destabilized that country, which now
has its own <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/world/asia/karachi-pakistan-airport-attack-taliban.html"
target="_blank">fierce Taliban movement</a>. The 2011 U.S.
intervention in Libya initially seemed like a triumph, as had
the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan before it. Libyan
autocrat Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and the rebels swept
into power. Like Afghanistan and Iraq, however, Libya is now
a basket case, riven by <a
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/30/us-libya-militias-insight-idUSBREA2T05H20140330"
target="_blank">competing militias</a> and <a
href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/libya-bomb-attack-four-die-in-failed-assassination-attempt-on-general-9488564.html"
target="_blank">ambitious generals</a>, largely
ungovernable, and an open wound for the region. Arms from
Gaddafi’s looted arsenals have made their way into the hands
of Islamist rebels and jihadist extremists from the <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/libyan-weapons-flooded-egypts-black-weapons-market/2011/10/12/gIQA2YQufL_story.html"
target="_blank">Sinai Peninsula</a> to Mali, from <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/libyan-weapons-al-qaeda-north-africa_n_2727326.html"
target="_blank">Northern Africa</a> to <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/nigerian-islamist-militants-return-from-mali-with-weapons-skills/2013/05/31/d377579e-c628-11e2-9cd9-3b9a22a4000a_story.html"
target="_blank">northern Nigeria</a>, where Boko Haram is
entrenched. It is even possible, as Nick Turse <a
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/nick_turse_blowback_central"
target="_blank">has done</a>, to trace the growing U.S.
military presence in Africa to the destabilization of parts of
that continent.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><em>4. The U.S. military can’t win its wars. </em> This
is so obvious (though seldom said) that it hardly has to be
explained. The U.S. military <a
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175114/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_what_the_u.s._military_can%27t_do"
target="_blank">has not won</a> a serious engagement since
World War II: the results of wars in Korea, Vietnam,
Afghanistan, and Iraq ranged from stalemate to defeat and
disaster. With the exception of a couple of campaigns against
essentially no one (in Grenada and Panama), nothing, including
the “Global War on Terror,” would qualify as a success on its
own terms, no less anyone else’s. This was true,
strategically speaking, despite the fact that, in all these
wars, the U.S. controlled the air space, the seas (where
relevant), and just about any field of battle where the enemy
might be met. Its firepower was overwhelming and its ability
to lose in small-scale combat just about nil.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>It would be folly to imagine that this record
represents the historical norm. It doesn’t. It might be more
relevant to suggest that the sorts of imperial wars and wars
of pacification the U.S. has fought in recent times, often
against poorly armed, minimally trained, minority insurgencies
(or terror outfits), are simply unwinnable. They seem to
generate their own resistance. Their brutalities and even
their “victories” simply act as recruitment posters for the
enemy.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><em>5. The <a
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175337/tomgram%3A_william_astore,_we%27re_number_one_%28in_self-promotion%29"
target="_blank">U.S. military</a> is not “the <a
href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/12/03/afghanistan.obama/index.html?_s=PM:POLITICS"
target="_blank">finest fighting force</a> the world has
ever known” or “the greatest force for human liberation the
world has ever known,” or any of the similar over-the-top
descriptions that U.S. presidents are now regularly
obligated to use.</em> If you want the explanation for why
this is so, see points one through four above. A military
whose way of war doesn’t work, doesn’t solve problems,
destabilizes whatever it touches, and never wins simply can’t
be the greatest in history, no matter the firepower it
musters. If you really need further proof of this, think
about the crisis and scandals linked to the Veterans
Administration. They are visibly the fruit of a military
mired in frustration, despair, and defeat, not a triumphant
one holding high history’s banner of victory.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><strong>As for Peace, Not a Penny</strong></big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Is there a record like it? More than half a century of
American-style war by the most powerful and potentially
destructive military on the planet adds up to worse than
nothing. If any other institution in American life had a
comparable scorecard, it would be shunned like the plague. In
reality, the VA has a far better record of success when it
comes to the treatment of those broken by our wars than the
military does of winning them, and yet its head administrator
was forced to resign recently amid scandal and a media
firestorm.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>As in Iraq, Washington has a way of sending in the
Marines, setting the demons loose, leaving town, and then
wondering how in the world things got so bad — as if it had no
responsibility for what happened. Don’t think, by the way,
that no one ever warned us either. Who, for instance,
remembers Arab League head Amr Moussa <a
href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0914-01.htm"
target="_blank">saying</a> in 2004 that the U.S. had opened
the “gates of hell” in its invasion and occupation of Iraq?
Who remembers the <a
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/410/the_march_that_wasn_t_to_be"
target="_blank">vast antiwar movement</a> in the U.S. and
around the world that tried to stop the launching of that
invasion, the hundreds of thousands of people who took to the
streets to warn of the dangers before it was too late? In
fact, being in that antiwar movement more or less guaranteed
that ever after you couldn’t appear on the op-ed pages of
America’s major papers to discuss the disaster you had
predicted. The only people <a
href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0914-01.htm"
target="_blank">asked</a> to comment were those who had
carried it out, beaten the drums for it, or offered the
mildest tsk-tsk about it.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>By the way, don’t think for a moment that war never
solved a problem, or achieved a goal for an imperial or other
regime, or that countries didn’t regularly find victory in
arms. History is filled with such examples. So what if, in
some still-to-be-understood way, something has changed on
planet Earth? What if something in the nature of imperial war
now precludes victory, the achieving of goals, the “solving”
of problems in our present world? Given the American record,
it’s at least a thought worth considering.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>As for peace? Not even a penny for your thoughts on
that one. If you suggested pouring, say, $50 billion into
planning for peace, no less the <a
href="http://www.defenseone.com/management/2014/03/obama-requests-smaller-500-billion-defense-budget/79813/"
target="_blank">$500 billion</a> that goes to the Pentagon
annually for its base budget, just about anyone would laugh in
your face. (And keep in mind that that figure doesn’t include
most of the <a
href="http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/inside-the-2013-us-intelligence-black-budget/420/"
target="_blank">budget</a> for the increasingly militarized
U.S. Intelligence Community, or <a
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175815/tomgram%3A_mattea_kramer,_is_the_pentagon_doomed_--_to_be_flush_forever"
target="_blank">extra war costs</a> for Afghanistan, or the
budget of the increasingly militarized <a
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175545"
target="_blank">Department of Homeland Security</a>, or
other costs hidden elsewhere, including, for example, for the
U.S. nuclear arsenal, which is buried in the Energy
Department’s budget.)</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>That possible solutions to global problems, possible
winning strategies, might come from elsewhere than the U.S.
military or other parts of the national security state, based
on 50 years of imperial failure, 50 years of problems unsolved
and wars not won and goals not reached, of increasing
instability and destruction, of lives (American and otherwise)
snuffed out or broken? Not on your life.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Don’t walk away from war. It’s not the American way.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><em>Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the </em><a
href="http://www.americanempireproject.com/" target="_blank"><em>American
Empire Project</em></a><em> and author of </em><a
href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608461548/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20"
target="_blank">The United States of Fear</a><em> as well as
a history of the Cold War, </em><a
href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/155849586X/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20"
target="_blank">The End of Victory Culture</a><em>. He runs
the Nation Institute’s </em><a
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" target="_blank"><em>TomDispatch.com</em></a><em>.
His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is </em><a
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0086EF89K/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=tomdispatch-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0086EF89K"
target="_blank">Terminator Planet: The First History of
Drone Warfare, 2001-2050</a><em>.</em></big></big></p>
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