Absolutely Nothing: A Veteran’s Savage Indictment of the Iraq War (via Americans Against The Tea Party)
Tragically, all we’ve fought for in Iraq, all that 4,500 American lives were shed to gain, is on the cusp, potentially, of vanishing. – Mitt Romney, “Ideas Summit,” 6/13/2014 All we fought for in Iraq. All we fought for in Iraq is on the cusp…
This post was republished using Repost. Please read it on Informed Comment directly: https://www.juancole.com/2014/06/absolutely-nothing-a-veterans-savage-indictment-of-the-iraq-war.html
Thanks for the TRUTH!
I have to say that I find articles like this pointless, in the respect that they are only posted to sympathetic websites and seemingly are read only by people who are in agreement with the article’s points already.
Instead, I really want to see McCain, Graham and their like directly confronted with the points of this article. Every single time we see these senators, no one ever questions their assertions. McCain, Graham, etc. have to hold town meetings and public appearances, don’t they? Instead of posting this article to here and “Americans Against the Tea Party”, how about someone verbally summarize this article to McCain and Graham’s faces?
And who would do such a thing? One of the millionaire pundits who features McCain & Graham on his show? Perhaps a very serious news personality?
Or maybe not. Nobody will question these McCain and Graham because they surround themselves with people even less informed than themselves. McCain tried going outside of his safe-zone in the 2008 campaign and look what happened!
True as rain…true as the sun the moon and stars..right on the button….e.mail this to everybody you know….
Wow…! I had the shivers reading such truthful, dramatic and poignant cry of indignation…!
let’s not forget the 5 able bodied rMoney sons who didn’t fight too. they contributed by helping Daddy’s failed campaign.
Some points to consider:
All wars are about resources. Any exceptions prove the rule. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan, IMHO, was part of the plan outlined in the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) to secure oil and strategic mineral reserves for exploitation by Western (primarily American) corporations.
These two wars were made possible through the willing collusion of the media. Ninety percent (90%) of all media in America is owned by less than ten corporations. The idea of a gigantic “Liberal” media is a sad, pathetic joke. If we actually had a liberal media, more critical scrutiny would have been made of the Cheney administration’s claims, more Americans would have been better informed, and public opinion *might* have swayed Congress not to go along with Cheney.
The “professional intelligence community” also failed America. Your failure to speak out, to go public with your doubts, to present your “counter-intelligence”, co-enabled the Cheney administration. You (supposedly) swore an oath to serve *America*, not your commanding officers, not the Executive branch of government, and not the conservative politicians that most military officers align themselves with.
I’ve read that one factor that contributed to our decision to wage war against Iraq was that Saddam Hussein was talking about having Iraq use Euros as the official trading currency and this is, of course, a direct threat to the hegemony of the dollar.
Isn’t the first requirement of being a successful combat soldier the unwavering need to dehumanize one’s opponent?
The Chicken Hawks knew exactly what *you* were fighting for. (See my first paragraph.) The military is an asset to be *expended* in the pursuit of a nation’s *policy* objectives. America’s (unstated to the public) policy objectives were to secure the oil and mineral reserves along the “arc of instability” (a PNAC designation). They’re the masters; you’re the servants. What part of that don’t you understand?
Even though the U.S. didn’t secure Iraq’s oil reserves, the architects of the war (their masters, anyway) came out better than ever. The price of oil now is more than five times what it was in March, 2003. It certainly doesn’t cost five times more to pump out of the ground now, does it?
My father – 37 years USArmy, WWII, Korea, Vietnam – always told me that no one can hate war like a soldier because no one knows it like a soldier.
Absolutely the truth. good for you veteran and thank you for your service.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to go back and copy and paste. You can’t retweet something more than once.
While there are those who would recognise the truth of what (I suppose is) Wright’s current “savage indictment,” the truths of the Iraqi Debaqli were well-known in 1990 when the first attempt at American direct involvement in Hussein’s demise was made.
It was wrong-headed then, later revealed to be the naiveté of the earlier Bushists and their Angaloid pals’ “spine-stiffening” tactics, repeated for effect in 2003. Unfortunately, those who are most eager for wars are also those who are the most “wobbly,” as the Iron Maiden^ was wont to say. And, as we know about “iron maidens,”* they have a tendency to be less than forgiving, poking and prodding from all directions without relief. And, again, we have the Angaloid notion of imperial destiny, using the Americans as their surrogate military force. And, the American “leadership” again and again finds itself being poked and prodded – jabbed and goaded – into performing on the World stage that old, worn tragicomedy “Casting Pearls Before Swine.” The “pearls” – of course – are well-formed spheres of wisdom that the omnivores can never “get,” being all-consumed by their never-ending urges for consumables, the wisdom – like everything else ingested, is excreted, lost, wasted. And, like consumption, their malady is increasingly resistant to prophylaxis and treatment, putting all living beings in danger of succumbing to something that is quite unnecessary.
The Iraq Debaqli was wrong in 1990 as it was wrong in 2002 as it is now, as it has been in all of the intervening years. The only value seems to be providing those in the bleachers (if they even have THAT amount of initiative, opting for some relatively live action rather than the safety, security, and comfort of their “man-caves”) with a sense of belonging and participation in activities for which they have always been and always be otherwise unqualified.
^ link to en.wikipedia.org
* link to en.wikipedia.org
“Yeah, fuck you, Mitt.”
That’s the strict minimum he deserves, and he was having a nice , comfortable, peaceful but lively and entertaining life in Gay Paris… Do what I say, not what I do, tell us the religious leaders like Mitt, I’d bet.