Mission Accomplished, NOT
The Wall Street Urinal, in unison with much of our idiotic MSM, is trumpeting the propaganda claim that the "Last US Combat Brigade" has left Iraq. Bullshit.
We are still planning to keep 50,000 troops in that beleaguered country. Casualties among the Iraqis are mounting, not decreasing. And of course in addition to the remaining troops, there are an unknown number of brutal mercenaries, known as contract employees. The vast US Embassy in Iraq is apparently second only to the Pentagon in size and influence.
I am old enough to remember when our first troops in Vietnam were termed "advisors." Heaven help any poor person in the countries that we are "helping" if he or she gets in the way of their "advice."
These two appalling, unnecessary wars are now Obama's responsibility. They will mark his presidency as surely as Vietnam marked that of LBJ. Together with the dismal state of the economy, that means that Obama's is a f a i l e d presidency.
UPDATE. John McCain tweets: "Last American combat troops leave Iraq. I think President George W. Bush deserves some credit for this victory." That tangle of absurdities says it all.
We are still planning to keep 50,000 troops in that beleaguered country. Casualties among the Iraqis are mounting, not decreasing. And of course in addition to the remaining troops, there are an unknown number of brutal mercenaries, known as contract employees. The vast US Embassy in Iraq is apparently second only to the Pentagon in size and influence.
I am old enough to remember when our first troops in Vietnam were termed "advisors." Heaven help any poor person in the countries that we are "helping" if he or she gets in the way of their "advice."
These two appalling, unnecessary wars are now Obama's responsibility. They will mark his presidency as surely as Vietnam marked that of LBJ. Together with the dismal state of the economy, that means that Obama's is a f a i l e d presidency.
UPDATE. John McCain tweets: "Last American combat troops leave Iraq. I think President George W. Bush deserves some credit for this victory." That tangle of absurdities says it all.
Labels: Military lies
posted by Dyneslines at 9:13 AM
4 Comments:
Are we leaving via helicopters off the embassy roof? I think not. Iraq is actually a huge success, if only in pulling the bacon out of the fire of Bush's initial criminal invasion and incompetence.
Likewise we have excellent prospects of turning the situation in Afghanistan around with some patience and smarts, and leaving on the same gradual and friendly terms. That is, if you are paying close attention to what is going on there.
Obama has only begun to undo the multi-decade's worth of damage inflicted by his predecessor. On the economic front, his serious error was to not ask for more stimulus, which we still need more of. But if it had not passed at all, then we would have been worse off still.
So all in all, he is doing exceptionally well with the hand he's been dealt. What I can't understand is the traction the tea-partiers and fox news acolytes get out of policies that brought us into the ditch to start with. What credibility do they have? None.
A "huge success"? What planet are you living on, Burk? The Iraqis still have no government, and can't possibly handle the security situation on their own. This means sending in countless numbers of brutal mercenaries, who will be hated by the population. As a result, the people will assent to an Iranian-sponsored strong-man regime, and that will be that. Iran is the only beneficiary of our preposterous intervention.
Of course the situation is not p r e c i s e l y the same as our folly in Vietnam; history doesn't work that way. But we have spent a trillion dollars and counting, in a conflict that we provoked, and that has nothing to do with our national interest.
As they say in Hollywood, a trillion here, a trillion there--sooner or later, you are talking about real money. We simply cannot afford these huge costs of empire.
"More stimulus" will do little for the economy, because the jobs have gone to Asia, where they will stay. But wasting all this money on "stimulus" will bankrupt us. In fact, it has already.
We are living in the last days of the American Empire, and wishful talk will not change that.
Obama's poll numbers certainly do not bear out this polyannaish assessment. He is done for.
"No government"? Iraq has a fairly elected government, a working administration, and very active politics. Their parliamentary gridlock is a matter of their constitution- not ideal, but a lawful situation that they can work on.
"Mercenaries"? From where to where? Iraq has its own police and military. They, like Afghanistan, are eager to eject all those private contractors as well as American forces.
"Iranian-sponsored"? What planet are you living on? The fact that Shia are in charge of Iraq makes it more friendly to Iran, but far from sponsored. Iraq fought a war with Iran, if you will recall. Iraq has plenty of nationalism of its own to keep Iran at bay. Whether they can keep civil war at bay.. that is a serious question, but it is far from a foregone path that they are on.
"we provoked"? Yes- and what does that have to do with Obama "failing"? Nothing and the opposite, in fact. He has responsibly continued to extricate us from the prior horrifying mess.
"We simply cannot afford"? Here you fail to understand macroeconomics. If we were suffering inflation, that would indicate excessive demands on our productive capacity- government and private demand competing for the same goods. But that is not where we are. In fact, we have tens of millions unemployed, essentially free labor that could be put to better use, building our infrastructure, going to war, whatever. We have productive capacity to spare, in spades, and insufficient demand for it. This is clear Keynesian economics.
Note that the money balance in the federal debt is at the same time private savings of bond by you and me- the pensions and other savings we have built up and are anxious to expand in these down times. Not a bad thing at all. If you want to learn some serious economics, I would recommend the billyblog.
At any rate, where is the world putting its money in these uncertain times? In the dollar. That should tell you all you need to know about the last days of the empire, etc..
Dream on, BB.
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