Published in both the European and Middle Eastern versions of Stars and Stripes. The military’s voice is going to be heard throughout all of this, so when certain politicians and pundits pretend the word of the top general is the truth, keep in mind that THIS is what they’re saying and what they’re reading (free Stars and Stripes can turn into the best part of an otherwise bullshit filling in a terror canole kind of day)…
Non-partisan in all ways beside the obvious “military” and “not military” distinction, natural in all print media. Not counting news stories, as our military IS buying space in foreign papers. Another aspect of the war that hits civilian society completely different than it does military society. By today it’s barely a ripple in the domestic news cycle, but at the proverbial “water cooler” throughout the military it’s talked about frequently.
Everybody knows they’ve got to put up with whatever happens, and while heros on the battlefield are many, it’s often the ‘Martin Luther King Jr. moment’ that’s cued and thought twice about, an instant realization that self preservation and being ‘that kind’ of a hero within the machine, well, suicide doesn’t have to be so drawn out and gory. However, something has changed, as the Beetle Baily version I read for a while never had anything like this!
From today’s issue of STARS & STRIPES:
Three years after “shock and awe,” now it’s called “the Long War,” just as the CATO Institute in 2003 said it would be.
Last month, President Bush casually informed Americans that troops would remain there past his second term, which ends on Jan. 20, 2009, and not a moment too soon. What a disaster Bush will leave Americans when calculating the costs of his generational commitment to “democratize” the Middle East. Columbia and Harvard economics professors estimate the U.S. invasion/occupation of Iraq through 2010 will cost taxpayers $1 trillion, minimum.
In “The True Costs of the Iraq War,” Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University professor of economics) states, “One cannot help but wonder: Were there alternative ways of spending a fraction of the war’s $1-$2 trillion in costs that would have better strengthened security, boosted prosperity, and promoted democracy?”
And spared lives? Clearly, but at a loss of billions in contracts to Halliburton/KBR, Bechtel and the Carlyle Group, of which George H.W. Bush is senior adviser. If it weren’t for war, the Bush family empire would be bankrupt. Self-enrichment is why Bush and (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair were determined to launch an invasion against Iraq. That’s why Iran is next.
Bush has said that he wouldn’t be in Iraq if not for a good reason. Bush isn’t in Iraq, and neither are members of his family. Some soldiers are on their third deployment and wish to be liberated from stop loss. Bush likely won’t initiate a “front-door” draft before the elections, which means more troop deployments until help — a new Congress and commander in chief — arrives.
Bush’s policy of touting peace and democracy while dropping bombs on oil-producing countries and promoting crony capitalism in an America deteriorating into a feudal backwater will be Bush’s legacy as the worst president in U.S. history.
Articles like that really make you feel bad for the troops.
The war on terror is never going to end until Islam makes it end. It’s going to cost us big time but it was never our option. I don’t think Amercia would have done well under the Sharia so fighting back is all we had.
I’m surprised that article made it into Stars and Stripes. Doesn’t cast a very positive light on the whole deal.
As for the war on terror. Bleh! That title is about as descriptive as the “war on drugs”. And I think we are probably less likely to win it.
RT: That’s $2 TRILLION. I hope you are putting money aside for your little daughter’s tax bill in the future (do the math on $2 trillion of borrowed money paid back in 20 years). This war is not an investment in the future, it is definitely a LIABILITY. Not only are we pouring our tax money down the drain (actually into corporate coffers), but we have also helped terrorist groups with the best advertising campaign they could possibly ever want.
You’ve got it completely backwards. I don’t think Sharia would have done very well in America. Jeez, give Americans some credit why don’t you? Were not all the sheep you seem to think we are.
Right:
Iraq is not part of the war on terror(how can you declare war on a verb anyway) Iraq was not a threat and if anything has distracted the US from dealing with real threats.
You might be right that Islam is the problem, so why did the US invade a country with a secular, albeit corrupt government and replace it with a theocracy?
Come on guys, this whole business of a war on Islam is just silly. We can’t kill all of the Muslims.
I think Bush took out Saddam for one of the oldest reasons in the book. Saddam threatened his Papa way back when. And I’ll give Bush some credit for having the balls to throw it all at Saddam because of it. However, a guy that makes these kinds of judgement calls isn’t the right guy to run our nation. He may be a great captain for a softball team, but definitely not commander-in-chief material.
Menace:
You make a good point that not all muslims want to destroy the US, although if we keep invading Muslim countries and causing immense collateral damage tat might change.
The war on terrorism should start with the the terrorists, does anyone remember Osama Bin Laden?
Right now the US is like a farmer with a Fox in his chicken coup. He could kill the fox, or he could destroy all the places that foxes breed. While the farmer is busy trying to destroy the forest he seems to have forgotten about the chicken coup.(sorry for the analogy, I am pretty weak at folkism) but hopefully you get the point.
To this day, I still find it beyonf appalling that we force people to stay in warzones 2, 3, 4 tours. Now there’s torture.
Where have we heard this before:
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions will be history by the time US President George W Bush leaves office, said a report published here.
Veteran foreign correspondent Arnaud de Borchgrave, writing for the United Press International, quotes a “prominent neo-con” with good White House and Department of Defence contacts, as the source of the assertion. Asked what would the US do if sanctions did not make Iran turn away from its nuclear target, the source replied, “B-2s. Two of them could do the job in a single strike against multiple targets.”
These civilians in the military are out of their minds. Anyone can get satelite imagery of just about anywhere, and in both Kosovo and Iraq we had thousands of pictures with descriptions, too many of them misinterpreted to at this point say disarming Iran with bombing would be at all an ‘easy’ thing.
High level meeting in ’99, after my unit had been put on alert (rolling to Kosovo) and told to stand down…commander of 1st ID, someone from the Pentagon, a lot of brass…they needed a nobody w/ security clearance to work the overhead projector, that ended up being me. Without going into specifics, I’ll just say that we’re not very good at target identification.
I left that meeting with a much different opinion concerning bombing as a tactic, and from what I know of Iran’s nuclear programs, I don’t think it’s as easy as some hawks would have us believe. Satelite photos from a year or two ago showed a nuclear facility there one day, gone the next, with 5-10 feet of soil dug up and removed underneath where the building once stood.
Not saying it’s impossible to solve the problem with bombing, but without human assets on the ground, confirming targets, bombing is like trying to paint a house with a toothbrush.
War never seems to be as easy as Neo-cons think it is going to be. I wonder if they just want to keep wars going because they are profitable or if they really believe the stuff they saying.
Maybe a last ditch effort to salvage the 2006 election:
THE IRAN PLANS
Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2006-04-17
Posted 2006-04-10
The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.
Going after Iran might make more sense than going after Iraq. Of course the othr issue is this going to be anothr rumsfeild screw-up? Even if it is a good idea the execution may doom this one to failure.
Going after Iran makes no sence at all. It’s a ridiculous notion at this point. Burning up a cache of weapons, having an excuse to…a way to get them used without it involving jail time.
You hit it right on the head. They want to wear out every single piece of equipment, fire off as many munitions as possible, and then Bush can leave, gas will be over $3 bucks WITHOUT A TAX, the military industrial complex will be fat and happy…
Those are undeniable facts. And since the threat of failure, or the actual thing, doesn’t matter to them at all…well, their goals appear to be selfish.
It does seem like Bush and Co have a different agenda than what they publicly say. By almost any measure Iraq is a failure, unless you are trying to drive the price of gas up, and enrich certain companies.
Iran is their new attempt to get the debate back to national security, the one debate they think they can win. Hopefully people will be smart enough to see through it this time. Of course their are the people out there who are still claiming that operation swarmer rivaled D-day. Some Bush kool-aid drinkers will never learn, but hopefully enough will to make a change come 2006.
Iraq all over again:
London – British foreign secretary Jack Straw on Sunday dismissed claims that the United States was preparing for military action against Iran, including nuclear strikes on suspected atomic weapons facilities.
He told BBC television that the international community was right to view the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme with “high suspicion” but “there is no smoking gun, there is no ‘casus belli’ (justification for war)”.
“We can’t be certain about Iran’s intentions and that is therefore not a basis for which anybody would gain authority to go to military action,” he said.