We’ve learned nothing in the Middle East. That isn’t going to change.

[n2doc]

By Paul Waldman
October 7

If you thought that two disastrous wars in the Middle East spread over 13 miserable years might cure Washington of its delusion that the next war will solve all our problems, you were wrong. The truth is that the people in power and contending for power have learned nothing. And guess what: two years from now, somebody in the grip of that same delusion is going to be elected president.

This delusion is the common thread running through two of today’s stories: The call from John McCain and Lindsey Graham for more war; and Leon Panetta’s new book criticizing President Obama on foreign policy.

For months, Republicans criticized Obama for not arming “moderate” rebels fighting against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Nobody’s suggesting that we invade, they insisted, but we need to help these folks out! And now that the administration is doing just that, their demands inevitably ratchet up. So today, Senators McCain and Graham have an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal lamenting the fact that “the administration still has no effective policy to remove Bashar Assad from power and end the conflict in Syria.”

Just “end the conflict” — what could possibly go wrong? McCain and Graham do allow that what they’re recommending “would not be minor military operations,” but that’s exactly what gets the senators’ blood pumping.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/10/07/weve-learned-nothing-in-the-middle-east-that-isnt-going-to-change/

[unblock]

1. i'm resigned when it comes to oil. it will run out long before we achieve the wisdom to husband it.

there will always be people and companies eager to make a profit, and there will always be demand. the scarcer it gets, the more lucrative it becomes, and the more people's ethics bend to the forces of greed.

along the way, governments wage war in the service of industry and in the name of peace and freedom and democracy, but it's all just part of the modern form of colonization and exploitation.

once the middle east oil supply dries up, we will largely lose interest, as will their super rich sheiks and emirs, who will probably retire to monaco or gibraltar or who knows. the rest there will be left to right amongst themselves and it won't make the evening news here.

[strawberries]

2. I remember thinking

after the Vietnam conflict, that this country would never again repeat a "vietnam".

Man did I get it wrong.

[jobycom]

4. They were brilliant after that one.

People were so skeptical of everything involving the military after that. They didn't trust our leaders, or the military, or any hint of war. So the Republicans made a cult of the military--circulating stories of soldiers spit on in the airports, or having red paint being poured on them. Jane Fonda became a pariah. Soon anyone who questioned the military was a traitor, and worse, ungrateful, and the politicians, especially Reagan (may he burn forever in Hell), were using that cult to condemn not just attacks on the military, but on anything politicians did with the military. We went from the reasonably peaceful Carter to the war-mongering Reagan, and the soul of this nation was lost for a generation or more.

Skilled cult creating and crowd marketing, that one was.

[strawberries]

5. I can't stomach

anymore war. I can't handle watching our young men and women coming home either in a box, or with PTSD

I just can't take it anymore.

[jobycom]

6. Yeah. Not to mention, what we do to the others.

I can no longer believe the story that a US citizen's life is worth more than anyone else's. Too much death, pain, and dehumanization.

[jobycom]

3. Wars abroad make people forget problems at home.

If you scream "They are going to come here and kill us all!" with enough terror in your voice, people will give you anything to save them. Take any ally (Hussein, ISIS, Mexican immigrants, it doesn't matter--if things get worse, Canada better be afraid), scream that they are killing babies in the streets, and soon everyone will be chanting "We have always been at war with Eastasia."

Nobody cares about ending war for all time--that's the last thing they want. No one cares about liberating the oppressed. No one cares about making the world safe for democracy or finding WMDs. It's about spreading our brand, and scaring the people at home so they won't demand more from their government. And if they can make white people fear black people and Latino people in the process, well great. Now they don't have to worry about the people uniting and throwing them out of office.