I do spell the last Turkiye as reminder to be careful around 'em. They're not quite the same as our other NATO allies. (Though they're apparently pretty good Russian haters, given the chance.)
Using the language of the audience to communicate in the written word seems effective and efficient to me. Also saves time having to find odd keyboard characters...just sayin'.
What do you know about flexing PJ? You don’t look like you’ve spent a day in your life at the gym. 😆 The writer is obviously a pseudo intellectual who believes that men can have babies and third grade boys need tampons.
Talk about a long-suffering public.... ;-) No offense to you and yours, personally, but that has GOT to be the ugliest butt on a car that has ever been designed. Now, my Dad's 1963 Chrylser New Yorker. *That* was the car to use on special dates, like Homecoming. Not to mention that the night he encountered a cow on the highway, the cow got the worst of it.
I agree that the Aztec was the ugliest vehicle I've ever seen. I'm not sure what the stylist was smoking when he came up with that, but he apparently shared it with the top brass at Pontiac who gave it the green light.
Myself, I've got a '03 Durango that hasn't cracked 50K yet that I have stocked as our bug-out vehicle if TSHTF. I actually preferred the feel of my '03 Trailblazer (which was my everyday vehicle), but it had nearly 200K on it, was rusting out underneath, and was in need of ball joints when I traded it in for a Kia Sorrento a several years back.
I'm a fan of the New Yorker, especially the late 30s-40s C-types.
Congrats on the rant! I was beginning to wonder when, if ever. Now I know.
See Mark Steyn's piece ("Assad? Sad!" 12/9/24 SteynOnline.com) on America's various "foreign entanglements" and follow its links for a pretty good round-up our foibles and foul-ups of the last quarter century.
We've all heard numerous times, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Most veterans understand that "if something can be used in an abusive manner, it will be." Parents (and most adults) understand that "bad behavior that is not punished will likely be repeated...repeatedly." Creating a system that can be used in an abusive manner against it's citizens without accountability or punishment leads to very predictable patterns of repeated negative behavior. The fix requires establishing a framework of accountability and punishment for individual and (most importantly) SYSTEMIC accountability. Can we do it? Fingers crossed...
We've been trying for over 200 years but yeah, the jury is still out. Some of us are a bit pessimistic. "A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.", and "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." as Mr. Franklin said.
"We were defeated by the Taliban (who had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11) after a 20 year war." Talk about "time to let it go"! I know you have this burr under your saddle, but divorce your emotions. We defeated Al Qaeda and the Taliban in weeks in an SOF war...then went on to hunt and kill bin Laden for years. Now, we should have just left - we put our troops in a position to get hurt and killed to try to keep the peace for "nation building" in a passive, low grade, anti-insurgency operation. Wrongly. But loss? No. We decided to leave, then BIDEN mismanaged the withdrawal and made us look like idiots. Nothing about the nation building was good, or likely to work, but it was certainly made worse by screwing up our departure so badly. But I think you let that embarrassment and anger about the mismanagement unduly color your assessment.
There will be comments, perhaps yours, that come back with "Are we there? Did we stay? Did we meet our objectives?" - no we aren't, we shouldn't have been there for so long...as I said. But yes, we did meet our objectives, in the first few weeks/months and certainly after we killed bin Laden. Then we should have left. The only objectives we didn't meet were the dreams of nation building that will ALWAYS fail in these type of situations...and they always have.
"In what may be considered the worst national security decision since the US Civil War, we fought an inconclusive war against the Baath Party in Iraq (a nation that had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11) and still have forces in Iraq…doing whatever we are doing there." I won't rehash all the back and forth - but the Baath Party was defeated. Saddam is gone, the party dismantled, and that all happened in weeks. The battle for nation building, a replacement government, that again put us in a low-grade counter-insurgency operation, was a back-and forth affair due to many mistakes (disbanding the armed forces). But once we paid the appropriate tribes after the surge in 2004, things settled down considerably. While things aren't optimal, there is a government - with a lot of Iranian influence, but still...
"Truth" - no, your opinion. Nobody is disguising or ignoring anything, just looking at it from a different and realistic viewpoint. If the only way we ever win one of these things is when there is never anybody firing a weapon any where, any time in these countries, then you can NEVER win. Somebody will always be doing something.
But when the level of deaths, of shootings, day to day in the country is much less than in a major city in the US like Chicago (yes, crime, but what is the difference?)...I don't think you can say things are going to hell or that we've failed.
" If the only way we ever win one of these things is when there is never anybody firing a weapon any where, any time in these countries, then you can NEVER win."
You're getting closer! I would say that we won WWII. Not much shooting going on in Japan or Germany.
Yeah, but that isn't feasible under current ROEs, now is it? We aren't carpet bombing cities and doing all the things that the UN calls war crimes these days. Talk to the media and talk to the UN and Europe. You can't practice total war - the equivalent of genocide - anymore. The other way to do it is not get in over your head and just do what the military does, when necessary, then let them go home and negotiate the rest. If they need more persuasion, bring back the military. Wash, rinse and repeat.
Uh, not to be reductionist, and asking because I genuinely don't know, but was the "juice worth the squeeze"? Did we leave a "government", or the illusion of one (kind of like the "hollow state" of our neighbor to the south?
Wasn't our Orange to squeeze in the first place, in that regard. We only went hunting because we were attacked. So whatever juice they have is up to them. If you don't think we should be backing Ukraine, for instance, you might ask is the juice worth the squeeze. History hasn't written the final act in any of this.
Whatever government is there, they aren't invading other countries or firing missiles at people.
Always helps to ask "What would the Israelis do?" Unfortunately, we rarely if ever ask that question and NEVER follow or support their courses of action. Ceasefire (STOP the killing!), negotiation (Return the spoils of war, with interest.), and nation-building (LGBTQWERTY is your future.) is the American way. Simply compare Kabul (before our, um, exit) and Gaza, and draw your own conclusions.
Agree. People interested in the wider world would do well to look into the British Empire's Colonial Office (they used to have its extensive materials online a decade or so ago).
It takes a great deal of national commitment in both time and resources, a dedicated and effective corps of expatriate administrators backed by a competent military, and deep understanding of where, for how long, and to what end the imperial project proceeds. The USA is woefully inadequate to the task in every respect.
American culture and politics seem uniquely unsuited to so-called "nation-building." USA was founded in 1770s/80s out of a fractious colonial dispute. Arguably, the cultural DNA of the US is that of the colonized, not the mother country colonizer. More recently, say post WWII, US helped to rebuild former adversaries West Germany & Japan; but those places were already nations in their own right, w many centuries of everything in place to resurrect. Afghanistan? Well, not so much... obviously.
Meanwhile, US culture and educational system are woefully lacking in creating a world awareness in the general population. And even allegedly "educated elites" have misinformed, if not bizarre, views of the world, as conversations w (for example) many Ivy League grads and Beltway policymakers will reveal.
I keep thinking of the effort the British made to pacify the Scottish Highlands...after the THIRD Jacobite rising, they bit the bullet, occupied the place, and started shipping large numbers of the inhabitants elsewhere. In addition to doing their utmost to uproot the culture.
The boot would not be lifted until the death of Charles Edward Stuart. His brother was in holy orders, not a threat.
One could point out that individual funders were from Saudi - same people pushing Wahhabism in the first place - but it is equally foolish to assign that factional support within the Royal family more broadly to the entire Saudi government or even the entire Royal family. Similarly, the al Qaeda training camps and infrastructure were located in Afghanistan and were hosted by the Taliban. Whatever the morons did on the exit from Afghanistan, I guarantee the Taliban won't allow that to go on in future. They're too invested in keeping their power and the Pakistani secret police don't want anybody to mess with their money from the drug trade anymore, either.
Not sure I understand why, once the facts were known, holding the Saudi royal family accountable and forcing them to tear out the bin Laden family root and branch for immediate execution would not have served all parties' purposes better "pour encourager les autres" then and forevermore.
As far as I remember, our entire system is built on (and one of the main reasons for separating from England) the brother/wife/son/daughter not being accountable for the sins of the father. If they are involved, OK, but if not? Sure, there is a also a lot of deceit and obfuscation about who did what, but welcome to life in international politics.
And that was the point of Afghanistan and Iraq, "pour encourage les autres" as you say. It was also planned as a war THERE, on open ground for out weapons systems, to give the jihadis a place to focus and come after our armed troops to be killed efficiently rather than having the cannon fodder available to put into their efforts to attack our civilians here. It worked to a great extent. Not a lot of follow up attacks as we expected.
Which consisted of what, exactly? A few acres of land, a few huts, and a few cell phones? What is/was the Al Qaeda equivalent of Ft. Benning and the Pentagon? I also note that the 9/11 participants trained and lived in W.Germany and the US for most of their "careers".
They initial began in Darunta, a camp near Jalalabad that housed Al-Qaeda's chemical warfare laboratory. Evidence found at the camp included poison-filled laboratory bottles, bomb instruction manuals, and evidence of international money transfers. Al-Qaeda moved its operations to eastern Afghanistan and developed a close relationship with the Taliban.
There were similar training camps in Badghis, Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Zabul, Ghazni, around Kabul (Laghman, Parwan, Kunar), and in Nanzaghar, Nuristan, and Takhur. With weapons stockpiles, media centers, safe houses, and Madrasas spread around the country.
Having been there I can tell you from what I saw is that we destroyed a country based on outright lies about Saddam having WMD and if we didn't attack, we would soon see a mushroom cloud over Manhattan.
Remember Dick Cheney's "yellowcake?" Remember Dick Cheney endorsed Kamala? He played us for fools.
We took down Saddam and created a thousand little Saddams.
Now we are celebrating the fall of Assad, but the Middle East is a ballgame with infinite innings.
BTW, the surge under General Petraeus was in 2007.
Were you in the Marine detachments chasing the truck convoys leaving the weapons depots as they ran to Syria along the NW border at Al-Qa'im (far enough to be outside the range of air strikes, since we couldn't use Incirlik)? The neutron emissions detections in the mountains as the Iraqis fought a rear guard action to protect the movement - the last fighting in the "major combat" actions of the invasion? We can't go through all the sources and back and forth (there is tons of info arguing about this), but there are aerial photographs and satellite photos showing the trucks loading up and leaving those WMD depots and making the trek to Syria.
So the Intelligence weenies may not have been totally right, but they weren't totally wrong - or being intentionally mendacious. Was there confirmation bias? Sure. But Saddam's generals believed he had nuclear weapons too, and they were in a better position to know.
In Arab tribal societies there are ALWAYS a thousand little Saddams - the sheiks and tribal chiefs. Saddam suppressed them brutally during his reign, but as in Afghanistan, it is the natural state. When we paid the Albu Mahal and their allied Sunni tribes, that was the key turning point. Then, after their success, when al-Maliki came to power he betrayed them and went after them because he thought they were a threat to his power. That is THEIR politics - best left to them.
But they aren't invading anyone or firing missiles at anyone anymore.
Because the US gave them to him in the 1980s, when he was fighting the Iranians - just like Putin complaining about the biolabs in Ukraine which they inherited when the USSR fell. They were Soviet biolabs, and that's how Putin knew...
Huh? Either of the devil's spawn were eminently qualified to deal effectively with the Iraqi citizenry, certainly much better candidates for the position than Paul Bremer (remember him?). Or perhaps you have a problem with Iraqis paying the butcher's bill when the USA was evidently so ready, willing, and able to flood that desert wasteland with its own wealth and blood. Altruism will be the ruination of this country. Do you really give a shit about what happens to either the Iraqis OR their rulers? If so, why? "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."
Looking at it from your perspective, could not one say, in both countries, that there were more separate wars fought?
1. Go in, break things, remove immediate threat
- two wins, fairly quick
2. Stay, increase, build infrastructure, build governments to various degrees of corruption, spend more money and lives, leave with either a less stable government, or exactly the same one you started with, and keep sending money after withdrawal, in one case a humiliating one
I'd say that is exactly it. The moment it became classified, rhetorically, as an "occupation", it turned toward the second and that is when we should have known to leave. Some people say you have the obligation to not leave a mess or to try to prevent a failed state from forming....but you have to weigh the cost. As we found, option 1 is what we wanted and option 2 is what we got, at a high cost.
War is Peace (NATO). Freedom is Slavery (DHS). Ignorance is Strength (New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, etc.).
So, we are attacking certain groups in Syria and Iraq because they are attacking our troops in those countries who are taking the sides of their opponents. Why don't we just leave altogether and say: "a pox upon both your houses?"
Why? Think of all the money flowing into Halliburton, Raytheon, Blackwater, etc. and the kickbacks to the politicians in the form of campaign contributions.
It's a win win situation for all involved unless you happen to be a Syrian, Libya, Iraqi, Afghani, Ukranian, etc.
What's the National Interest of the United States is a question we're going to have to answer. Especially since the Nuerotic Sunday School Teachers on all sides won't be happy with the answer(s).
We all remember Hillary's Reset Button that she stole from Target (and then used as cover for selling uranium to Russia), but I agree that we need a serious reset discussion regarding US foreign policy - emphasis on "discussion" as opposed to frantic raving back and forth. The recent election provided a great discussion of government policy, but that was primarily on domestic issues. There are only a small number of situations in which the President absolutely needs to respond to national threats without having the time to consult Congress. So, let's revisit that whole "the President can do whatever he thinks he needs do militarily" bit. And while we're at it, the remainder of all our government's actions deserve a strong review with regard to their compliance with the Constitution. TPA? Nope. Executive orders? Nope. Civil forfeiture? Nope. 99% of all gun laws? Nope.
Agree in principle, but queasy about the competency of the government at the moment. We're in a deep hole of poor performance. Have decided to stop digging...climbing out of the hole and filling it back in remains in doubt.
1. All laws expire June 30 of each new Congress (every two years) and must be re-established (with debate, reading, and vote) to continue.
2. Congress needs to read the full text of every law on the floor of each chamber (including all referenced text) prior to vote, with quorum present for the reading.
There are likely some CFRs that should be kept, such as mandating audits of all agencies and acquisitions. The problem is the “interpretation” of black and white laws. No. Advise the rest of the country about the administrative means by which legitimate laws are to be enforced (the actual purpose of the Executive Branch), and otherwise keep yer paws off the public.
The same intelligentsia say "Czechia" instead of Czech Republic. (even my native Czech friends only say "Czech Republic" to self identify their own country. They generally think use of "Czechia" is silly.)
Excellent essay, but I'm only commenting on your "One Final Note..." You have exactly mirrored what I've been saying for decades now, going back--at least--to the First Gulf War, where suddenly, after three decades of pronouncing "Qatar" like the disease ("catarrh") suddenly we were instructed to pronounce it as "gutter."
Now that I consider it, this all started with the sudden switchover from transcriptions of Chinese from Giles-Waite to Pinyin back in the 1970s. As my father--a Russian scholar--sarcastically pointed out, Pinyin is only superior if your normal alphabet is Cyrillic, as shown by the fact that Pinyin uses "x" for a soft guttural sound previously transcribed in Giles-Waite as "hs."
It's also amusing to realize that foreigners don't feel any impetus in this direction. I'm a French-speaker and I can tell you for a fact that not only are foreign place-names pronounced in a non-native way in French, they're often actually translated into French! "Den Haag" ("The Hague") becomes "La Haye" and "s'Hertogenbosch" becomes "Bois-Le-Duc." It took me three decades to realize that "Plaisance" in Italy is actually "Piacenza."
The war plan to invade Iraq, presented on that fateful day in August 2002, had one dissenter--the US Navy. From the Vice Chief on down, and I reckon most of the backbenchers in that room, we're highly skeptical of designing a plan without a mission, devoid of casius belli underpinnings, and wholly pivoted upon the cooperation of unwitting partners.
And now, something north of $5.8T spent, untold number of lives lost or disfigured, and untold spinoffs later, I think we have an unspoken national disgrace that haunts us to this very day.
For those who feel compelled to jump on me for this comment, do know that I was at that table.
I was in Bahrain at and during the months following 911. We all thought we were going to do a punitive expedition and would not be stupid enough to…well, here we find ourselves in 2024. Shame no one in the Navy’s senior leadership stood next to Shinseki prior to the Iraq invasion. He was the sole GOFO who was willing to put it on the table. History shows that the senior USN leadership in the 00’s from Clark to Mullen were not the leaders the moment demanded.
That's what happens when we listen to "experts" instead of common sense and those much touted "lessons learned". Harvard experts got us into Vietnam and Yale experts, if I remember correctly, got us into Iraqistania
It would have been nice if there had been a realistic POST-war peace plan. I still see in my mind the news report from Baghdad showing Americans in their Bradley AFVs watching passively as Iraqis looted government buildings and, evidently, stockpiled weapons. "Winning" that war was a lot cheaper than the ensuing "peace".
That win WAS the plan, the whole plan, and nothing but the plan.
Shock and awe, take out the "deck of cards," then pack up the Hummers and birds and boogie on back to the cutest girls in the world.
That most excellent plan then ran up against the "Pottery Barn Rule" and the rest was history and the continuing saga thereof. Think Haiti for the correct model done correctly: break what you need to, then let the natives straighten things out as best they can. Rinse and repeat until they get it right (enough).
I can't find a point to disagree with, Sal. The AUMF and Patriot Act have morphed from a necessary (though deeply flawed) attempt to get up to speed against an enemy that we didn't truly understand into the basis for continuing the Forever War (which is an excellent book, BTW for whoever hasn't already read it). I truly hope that the new Trump admin can clean a bunch of this junk from our work bench and allow us to get focused on what we actually need for our future. Great post.
Do you say "Japan" or "Nihon" in conversation? Stop being pedantic.
Typos happen to all of us. :)
They are Ft. Bragg, Ceylon, Burma, and Turkey until I think otherwise.
I do spell the last Turkiye as reminder to be careful around 'em. They're not quite the same as our other NATO allies. (Though they're apparently pretty good Russian haters, given the chance.)
No Arab country (or Turkey) is a solid friend to America. Transactional only.
Countries don't have "friends"—they have only interests.
Alexander Hamilton has entered the chat.
True, though "interests" is fluid and has nuances.
They are probably still peeved about the loss of the Crimean Khanate. They probably don't care much for Ukrainians, either.
Using the language of the audience to communicate in the written word seems effective and efficient to me. Also saves time having to find odd keyboard characters...just sayin'.
Great point.
What do you know about flexing PJ? You don’t look like you’ve spent a day in your life at the gym. 😆 The writer is obviously a pseudo intellectual who believes that men can have babies and third grade boys need tampons.
PJ, you have two strikes. One more and you will be permanently banned from commenting here.
FAFO. Don’t be a Pj
I just gotta note... we still have and use our Aztek.
So there!
Or something.
But then, I've held this opinion since 2003. When we got our Aztek.
in keeping with our host's recommendations today......that would be......AssTech HA!
So you own the inspiration for the CyberTruck?
Talk about a long-suffering public.... ;-) No offense to you and yours, personally, but that has GOT to be the ugliest butt on a car that has ever been designed. Now, my Dad's 1963 Chrylser New Yorker. *That* was the car to use on special dates, like Homecoming. Not to mention that the night he encountered a cow on the highway, the cow got the worst of it.
I agree that the Aztec was the ugliest vehicle I've ever seen. I'm not sure what the stylist was smoking when he came up with that, but he apparently shared it with the top brass at Pontiac who gave it the green light.
Myself, I've got a '03 Durango that hasn't cracked 50K yet that I have stocked as our bug-out vehicle if TSHTF. I actually preferred the feel of my '03 Trailblazer (which was my everyday vehicle), but it had nearly 200K on it, was rusting out underneath, and was in need of ball joints when I traded it in for a Kia Sorrento a several years back.
I'm a fan of the New Yorker, especially the late 30s-40s C-types.
Mid 90's was peak cars, enough tech to make them better (ABS, engine management) without all the nanny/tattle tale electronics they have now.
Best vehicle I ever had was my 1991 Ford Explorer with the 4.0L V6. 250K on it when it rusted out enough I finally had to get rid of it.
I still have a 2004 Ranger (Mazda) Edge it was a good year for vehicles LOL
Congrats on the rant! I was beginning to wonder when, if ever. Now I know.
See Mark Steyn's piece ("Assad? Sad!" 12/9/24 SteynOnline.com) on America's various "foreign entanglements" and follow its links for a pretty good round-up our foibles and foul-ups of the last quarter century.
Don't forget (fake) Kyivvvvvv.
JW: Chicken Kiev tastes better.
We've all heard numerous times, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Most veterans understand that "if something can be used in an abusive manner, it will be." Parents (and most adults) understand that "bad behavior that is not punished will likely be repeated...repeatedly." Creating a system that can be used in an abusive manner against it's citizens without accountability or punishment leads to very predictable patterns of repeated negative behavior. The fix requires establishing a framework of accountability and punishment for individual and (most importantly) SYSTEMIC accountability. Can we do it? Fingers crossed...
"Can we do it?"
We've been trying for over 200 years but yeah, the jury is still out. Some of us are a bit pessimistic. "A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.", and "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." as Mr. Franklin said.
"We were defeated by the Taliban (who had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11) after a 20 year war." Talk about "time to let it go"! I know you have this burr under your saddle, but divorce your emotions. We defeated Al Qaeda and the Taliban in weeks in an SOF war...then went on to hunt and kill bin Laden for years. Now, we should have just left - we put our troops in a position to get hurt and killed to try to keep the peace for "nation building" in a passive, low grade, anti-insurgency operation. Wrongly. But loss? No. We decided to leave, then BIDEN mismanaged the withdrawal and made us look like idiots. Nothing about the nation building was good, or likely to work, but it was certainly made worse by screwing up our departure so badly. But I think you let that embarrassment and anger about the mismanagement unduly color your assessment.
There will be comments, perhaps yours, that come back with "Are we there? Did we stay? Did we meet our objectives?" - no we aren't, we shouldn't have been there for so long...as I said. But yes, we did meet our objectives, in the first few weeks/months and certainly after we killed bin Laden. Then we should have left. The only objectives we didn't meet were the dreams of nation building that will ALWAYS fail in these type of situations...and they always have.
"In what may be considered the worst national security decision since the US Civil War, we fought an inconclusive war against the Baath Party in Iraq (a nation that had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11) and still have forces in Iraq…doing whatever we are doing there." I won't rehash all the back and forth - but the Baath Party was defeated. Saddam is gone, the party dismantled, and that all happened in weeks. The battle for nation building, a replacement government, that again put us in a low-grade counter-insurgency operation, was a back-and forth affair due to many mistakes (disbanding the armed forces). But once we paid the appropriate tribes after the surge in 2004, things settled down considerably. While things aren't optimal, there is a government - with a lot of Iranian influence, but still...
Lipstick on a pig. The ugly truth(s) cannot be disguised, ignored, or excused. See the Steyn piece (and links) I referenced upthread.
"Truth" - no, your opinion. Nobody is disguising or ignoring anything, just looking at it from a different and realistic viewpoint. If the only way we ever win one of these things is when there is never anybody firing a weapon any where, any time in these countries, then you can NEVER win. Somebody will always be doing something.
But when the level of deaths, of shootings, day to day in the country is much less than in a major city in the US like Chicago (yes, crime, but what is the difference?)...I don't think you can say things are going to hell or that we've failed.
" If the only way we ever win one of these things is when there is never anybody firing a weapon any where, any time in these countries, then you can NEVER win."
You're getting closer! I would say that we won WWII. Not much shooting going on in Japan or Germany.
Yeah, but that isn't feasible under current ROEs, now is it? We aren't carpet bombing cities and doing all the things that the UN calls war crimes these days. Talk to the media and talk to the UN and Europe. You can't practice total war - the equivalent of genocide - anymore. The other way to do it is not get in over your head and just do what the military does, when necessary, then let them go home and negotiate the rest. If they need more persuasion, bring back the military. Wash, rinse and repeat.
" You can't practice total war - the equivalent of genocide - anymore."
What a pity.
Uh, not to be reductionist, and asking because I genuinely don't know, but was the "juice worth the squeeze"? Did we leave a "government", or the illusion of one (kind of like the "hollow state" of our neighbor to the south?
Wasn't our Orange to squeeze in the first place, in that regard. We only went hunting because we were attacked. So whatever juice they have is up to them. If you don't think we should be backing Ukraine, for instance, you might ask is the juice worth the squeeze. History hasn't written the final act in any of this.
Whatever government is there, they aren't invading other countries or firing missiles at people.
Always helps to ask "What would the Israelis do?" Unfortunately, we rarely if ever ask that question and NEVER follow or support their courses of action. Ceasefire (STOP the killing!), negotiation (Return the spoils of war, with interest.), and nation-building (LGBTQWERTY is your future.) is the American way. Simply compare Kabul (before our, um, exit) and Gaza, and draw your own conclusions.
Well, there is something besides the "more rubble, less trouble" school. But more rubble does help sometimes in persuading people to negotiate.
Agree. People interested in the wider world would do well to look into the British Empire's Colonial Office (they used to have its extensive materials online a decade or so ago).
It takes a great deal of national commitment in both time and resources, a dedicated and effective corps of expatriate administrators backed by a competent military, and deep understanding of where, for how long, and to what end the imperial project proceeds. The USA is woefully inadequate to the task in every respect.
American culture and politics seem uniquely unsuited to so-called "nation-building." USA was founded in 1770s/80s out of a fractious colonial dispute. Arguably, the cultural DNA of the US is that of the colonized, not the mother country colonizer. More recently, say post WWII, US helped to rebuild former adversaries West Germany & Japan; but those places were already nations in their own right, w many centuries of everything in place to resurrect. Afghanistan? Well, not so much... obviously.
Meanwhile, US culture and educational system are woefully lacking in creating a world awareness in the general population. And even allegedly "educated elites" have misinformed, if not bizarre, views of the world, as conversations w (for example) many Ivy League grads and Beltway policymakers will reveal.
I keep thinking of the effort the British made to pacify the Scottish Highlands...after the THIRD Jacobite rising, they bit the bullet, occupied the place, and started shipping large numbers of the inhabitants elsewhere. In addition to doing their utmost to uproot the culture.
The boot would not be lifted until the death of Charles Edward Stuart. His brother was in holy orders, not a threat.
Glass rubble...NO trouble.
One must USE the big stick periodically, once per 25-year generation should do I'd guess, in order gain the credibility to speak softly thereafter.
One could point out to the fact that invading Afghanistan in response to an attack from Saudi Arabia was a pretty foolish idea.
One could point out that individual funders were from Saudi - same people pushing Wahhabism in the first place - but it is equally foolish to assign that factional support within the Royal family more broadly to the entire Saudi government or even the entire Royal family. Similarly, the al Qaeda training camps and infrastructure were located in Afghanistan and were hosted by the Taliban. Whatever the morons did on the exit from Afghanistan, I guarantee the Taliban won't allow that to go on in future. They're too invested in keeping their power and the Pakistani secret police don't want anybody to mess with their money from the drug trade anymore, either.
Funders and combatants.
OK...a lot of people are. Osama was Saudi and his family construction business provided a lot of funding.
Not sure I understand why, once the facts were known, holding the Saudi royal family accountable and forcing them to tear out the bin Laden family root and branch for immediate execution would not have served all parties' purposes better "pour encourager les autres" then and forevermore.
As far as I remember, our entire system is built on (and one of the main reasons for separating from England) the brother/wife/son/daughter not being accountable for the sins of the father. If they are involved, OK, but if not? Sure, there is a also a lot of deceit and obfuscation about who did what, but welcome to life in international politics.
And that was the point of Afghanistan and Iraq, "pour encourage les autres" as you say. It was also planned as a war THERE, on open ground for out weapons systems, to give the jihadis a place to focus and come after our armed troops to be killed efficiently rather than having the cannon fodder available to put into their efforts to attack our civilians here. It worked to a great extent. Not a lot of follow up attacks as we expected.
" al Qaeda training camps and infrastructure "
Which consisted of what, exactly? A few acres of land, a few huts, and a few cell phones? What is/was the Al Qaeda equivalent of Ft. Benning and the Pentagon? I also note that the 9/11 participants trained and lived in W.Germany and the US for most of their "careers".
Well, let's see:
They initial began in Darunta, a camp near Jalalabad that housed Al-Qaeda's chemical warfare laboratory. Evidence found at the camp included poison-filled laboratory bottles, bomb instruction manuals, and evidence of international money transfers. Al-Qaeda moved its operations to eastern Afghanistan and developed a close relationship with the Taliban.
There were similar training camps in Badghis, Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Zabul, Ghazni, around Kabul (Laghman, Parwan, Kunar), and in Nanzaghar, Nuristan, and Takhur. With weapons stockpiles, media centers, safe houses, and Madrasas spread around the country.
https://irp.fas.org/imint/afghan.htm
The Vietnamese defeated us, the Taliban defeated us. A L doesn't become a W just by twisting words around.
Having been there I can tell you from what I saw is that we destroyed a country based on outright lies about Saddam having WMD and if we didn't attack, we would soon see a mushroom cloud over Manhattan.
Remember Dick Cheney's "yellowcake?" Remember Dick Cheney endorsed Kamala? He played us for fools.
We took down Saddam and created a thousand little Saddams.
Now we are celebrating the fall of Assad, but the Middle East is a ballgame with infinite innings.
BTW, the surge under General Petraeus was in 2007.
Were you in the Marine detachments chasing the truck convoys leaving the weapons depots as they ran to Syria along the NW border at Al-Qa'im (far enough to be outside the range of air strikes, since we couldn't use Incirlik)? The neutron emissions detections in the mountains as the Iraqis fought a rear guard action to protect the movement - the last fighting in the "major combat" actions of the invasion? We can't go through all the sources and back and forth (there is tons of info arguing about this), but there are aerial photographs and satellite photos showing the trucks loading up and leaving those WMD depots and making the trek to Syria.
So the Intelligence weenies may not have been totally right, but they weren't totally wrong - or being intentionally mendacious. Was there confirmation bias? Sure. But Saddam's generals believed he had nuclear weapons too, and they were in a better position to know.
In Arab tribal societies there are ALWAYS a thousand little Saddams - the sheiks and tribal chiefs. Saddam suppressed them brutally during his reign, but as in Afghanistan, it is the natural state. When we paid the Albu Mahal and their allied Sunni tribes, that was the key turning point. Then, after their success, when al-Maliki came to power he betrayed them and went after them because he thought they were a threat to his power. That is THEIR politics - best left to them.
But they aren't invading anyone or firing missiles at anyone anymore.
It doesn't matter. We knew Saddam had chemical weapons...because he had used them.
But he magically ordered all of the equipment and personnel into agricultural fertilizer and pesticide production. so there! ;<)
Because the US gave them to him in the 1980s, when he was fighting the Iranians - just like Putin complaining about the biolabs in Ukraine which they inherited when the USSR fell. They were Soviet biolabs, and that's how Putin knew...
Not today, but tomorrow?
I attended ceremonies where coffins draped in the American flag were loaded onto planes. And for what?
Well, we should be able to find out more about that alleged Syrian connection in the near future.
I still say the best outcome of the Gulf War II was ensuring that Saddam's two psychopathic sons never ruled Iraq or anywhere for that matter.
Huh? Either of the devil's spawn were eminently qualified to deal effectively with the Iraqi citizenry, certainly much better candidates for the position than Paul Bremer (remember him?). Or perhaps you have a problem with Iraqis paying the butcher's bill when the USA was evidently so ready, willing, and able to flood that desert wasteland with its own wealth and blood. Altruism will be the ruination of this country. Do you really give a shit about what happens to either the Iraqis OR their rulers? If so, why? "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."
It’s a toss up between them and Hunter.
Looking at it from your perspective, could not one say, in both countries, that there were more separate wars fought?
1. Go in, break things, remove immediate threat
- two wins, fairly quick
2. Stay, increase, build infrastructure, build governments to various degrees of corruption, spend more money and lives, leave with either a less stable government, or exactly the same one you started with, and keep sending money after withdrawal, in one case a humiliating one
- two losses
I'd say that is exactly it. The moment it became classified, rhetorically, as an "occupation", it turned toward the second and that is when we should have known to leave. Some people say you have the obligation to not leave a mess or to try to prevent a failed state from forming....but you have to weigh the cost. As we found, option 1 is what we wanted and option 2 is what we got, at a high cost.
"We defeated Al Qaeda and the Taliban in weeks "
As the Germans did the French in 1940. Of course, DeGaulle et al. disagreed. As the sagacious Yogi Berra once said, "It ain't over 'till it's over".
War is Peace (NATO). Freedom is Slavery (DHS). Ignorance is Strength (New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, etc.).
So, we are attacking certain groups in Syria and Iraq because they are attacking our troops in those countries who are taking the sides of their opponents. Why don't we just leave altogether and say: "a pox upon both your houses?"
Why? Think of all the money flowing into Halliburton, Raytheon, Blackwater, etc. and the kickbacks to the politicians in the form of campaign contributions.
It's a win win situation for all involved unless you happen to be a Syrian, Libya, Iraqi, Afghani, Ukranian, etc.
To the last, add "a citizen of the United States of America (in pursuit of its national interest)."
What's the National Interest of the United States is a question we're going to have to answer. Especially since the Nuerotic Sunday School Teachers on all sides won't be happy with the answer(s).
MAGA will do until the next few symbols are added to 'LGBTQWERTY' (perhaps even a dierisis...).
"War is Peace (NATO). Freedom is Slavery (DHS). Ignorance is Strength (New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, etc.)."
I approve this message
yup!
We all remember Hillary's Reset Button that she stole from Target (and then used as cover for selling uranium to Russia), but I agree that we need a serious reset discussion regarding US foreign policy - emphasis on "discussion" as opposed to frantic raving back and forth. The recent election provided a great discussion of government policy, but that was primarily on domestic issues. There are only a small number of situations in which the President absolutely needs to respond to national threats without having the time to consult Congress. So, let's revisit that whole "the President can do whatever he thinks he needs do militarily" bit. And while we're at it, the remainder of all our government's actions deserve a strong review with regard to their compliance with the Constitution. TPA? Nope. Executive orders? Nope. Civil forfeiture? Nope. 99% of all gun laws? Nope.
She stole it from Staples.
Thanks for the correction.
Agree in principle, but queasy about the competency of the government at the moment. We're in a deep hole of poor performance. Have decided to stop digging...climbing out of the hole and filling it back in remains in doubt.
at the moment? It's been bad and getting worse almost my entire life. Perhaps with DoGE we can slow the slide
She - or rather her staff - also got the Cyrillic translation wrong; instead of “Reset” what was printed was “Overcharge”.
Can’t make this stuff up folks.
New rules:
1. All laws expire June 30 of each new Congress (every two years) and must be re-established (with debate, reading, and vote) to continue.
2. Congress needs to read the full text of every law on the floor of each chamber (including all referenced text) prior to vote, with quorum present for the reading.
I will up you one. Only congress can pass laws. Regulatory agencies cannot. The entire Code of Federal Regulations is to be scrapped.
There are likely some CFRs that should be kept, such as mandating audits of all agencies and acquisitions. The problem is the “interpretation” of black and white laws. No. Advise the rest of the country about the administrative means by which legitimate laws are to be enforced (the actual purpose of the Executive Branch), and otherwise keep yer paws off the public.
Recent Supreme Court rulings should help in this regard:)
3. Explain to the American public why over 200 federal agencies need to be armed.
Explain why ANY of them should be, as opposed to working with State authorities as appropriate
I would be satisfied knowing why the customs agents at airports need to be armed. Everyone they deal with has been checked for weapons.
That's the problem. We are attacking an enemy from 23 years ago.
That enemy was not our enemy. They had nothing to do with 9/1I
I agree, we need to pull all of our soldiers back home and put them on the border.
Other than that, we need to get rid of the patriot act, considering it was anything but patriotic.
The same intelligentsia say "Czechia" instead of Czech Republic. (even my native Czech friends only say "Czech Republic" to self identify their own country. They generally think use of "Czechia" is silly.)
Excellent essay, but I'm only commenting on your "One Final Note..." You have exactly mirrored what I've been saying for decades now, going back--at least--to the First Gulf War, where suddenly, after three decades of pronouncing "Qatar" like the disease ("catarrh") suddenly we were instructed to pronounce it as "gutter."
Now that I consider it, this all started with the sudden switchover from transcriptions of Chinese from Giles-Waite to Pinyin back in the 1970s. As my father--a Russian scholar--sarcastically pointed out, Pinyin is only superior if your normal alphabet is Cyrillic, as shown by the fact that Pinyin uses "x" for a soft guttural sound previously transcribed in Giles-Waite as "hs."
It's also amusing to realize that foreigners don't feel any impetus in this direction. I'm a French-speaker and I can tell you for a fact that not only are foreign place-names pronounced in a non-native way in French, they're often actually translated into French! "Den Haag" ("The Hague") becomes "La Haye" and "s'Hertogenbosch" becomes "Bois-Le-Duc." It took me three decades to realize that "Plaisance" in Italy is actually "Piacenza."
Les États-Unis
I asked a Quatari how it was pronouncer Gutter or Quitar rhymes with guitar--he said and emphasized the latter.
...So the whole "Gutter" thing was in fact baloney from start to finish ?!? Amazing.
LOUDER FOR THOSE IN THE BACK!
Amen!
The war plan to invade Iraq, presented on that fateful day in August 2002, had one dissenter--the US Navy. From the Vice Chief on down, and I reckon most of the backbenchers in that room, we're highly skeptical of designing a plan without a mission, devoid of casius belli underpinnings, and wholly pivoted upon the cooperation of unwitting partners.
And now, something north of $5.8T spent, untold number of lives lost or disfigured, and untold spinoffs later, I think we have an unspoken national disgrace that haunts us to this very day.
For those who feel compelled to jump on me for this comment, do know that I was at that table.
"A Plan Without a Mission."
Wow... Great line. I will borrow that. Thank you.
Iraq was the CENTCOM Von Schileffen Plan...the only plan they had. And they meant to use it, whether or not it was appropriate or would work.
The lesson that SHOULD have been taken was to repent of the folly that was Goldwater-Nichols and let the Army run nothing bigger than a base.
Whaaaat??? You mean you took time from developing the Navy’s DEI programs in order to focus on something important?
Didn't someone once say invading Iraq would be a "quagmire?"
Quicksand not quagmire.
I was in Bahrain at and during the months following 911. We all thought we were going to do a punitive expedition and would not be stupid enough to…well, here we find ourselves in 2024. Shame no one in the Navy’s senior leadership stood next to Shinseki prior to the Iraq invasion. He was the sole GOFO who was willing to put it on the table. History shows that the senior USN leadership in the 00’s from Clark to Mullen were not the leaders the moment demanded.
I dislike General Beret for a number of reasons, but he was right on that.
That's what happens when we listen to "experts" instead of common sense and those much touted "lessons learned". Harvard experts got us into Vietnam and Yale experts, if I remember correctly, got us into Iraqistania
We had a plan. It was to turn Iraq into a Jeffersonian democracy. What could possibly go wrong?
"Hope is not a plan" seems to apply
JPME says otherwise. Magical thinking.
It would have been nice if there had been a realistic POST-war peace plan. I still see in my mind the news report from Baghdad showing Americans in their Bradley AFVs watching passively as Iraqis looted government buildings and, evidently, stockpiled weapons. "Winning" that war was a lot cheaper than the ensuing "peace".
PS
Reminds me of the Underpants Gnomes plan.
1) Conquer third world country.
2) ?
3) Third world country becomes prosperous and peaceful member of the international community and a popular vacation and tourist location.
That win WAS the plan, the whole plan, and nothing but the plan.
Shock and awe, take out the "deck of cards," then pack up the Hummers and birds and boogie on back to the cutest girls in the world.
That most excellent plan then ran up against the "Pottery Barn Rule" and the rest was history and the continuing saga thereof. Think Haiti for the correct model done correctly: break what you need to, then let the natives straighten things out as best they can. Rinse and repeat until they get it right (enough).
The ending of the movie "The Candidate", words of the man who just won a hard-fought campaign.---
"What do we do now?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myEpap3TxVs
I can't find a point to disagree with, Sal. The AUMF and Patriot Act have morphed from a necessary (though deeply flawed) attempt to get up to speed against an enemy that we didn't truly understand into the basis for continuing the Forever War (which is an excellent book, BTW for whoever hasn't already read it). I truly hope that the new Trump admin can clean a bunch of this junk from our work bench and allow us to get focused on what we actually need for our future. Great post.
"an enemy that we didn't truly understand"
It ain't rocket science. That enemy has a 1500 year history and has given us lots of reading material.