Debacle!: How Two Wars in the Greater Middle East Revealed the Weakness of the Global Superpower

[marmar]

from TomDispatch:



Debacle!
How Two Wars in the Greater Middle East Revealed the Weakness of the Global Superpower

By Tom Engelhardt


It was to be the war that would establish empire as an American fact. It would result in a thousand-year Pax Americana. It was to be “mission accomplished” all the way. And then, of course, it wasn’t. And then, almost nine dismal years later, it was over (sorta).

It was the Iraq War, and we were the uninvited guests who didn’t want to go home. To the last second, despite President Obama’s repeated promise that all American troops were leaving, despite an agreement the Iraqi government had signed with George W. Bush’s administration in 2008, America’s military commanders continued to lobby and Washington continued to negotiate for 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops to remain in-country as advisors and trainers.

Only when the Iraqis simply refused to guarantee those troops immunity from local law did the last Americans begin to cross the border into Kuwait. It was only then that our top officials began to hail the thing they had never wanted, the end of the American military presence in Iraq, as marking an era of “accomplishment.” They also began praising their own “decision” to leave as a triumph, and proclaimed that the troops were departing with -- as the president put it -- “their heads held high.”

In a final flag-lowering ceremony in Baghdad, clearly meant for U.S. domestic consumption and well attended by the American press corps but not by Iraqi officials or the local media, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta spoke glowingly of having achieved “ultimate success.” He assured the departing troops that they had been a “driving force for remarkable progress” and that they could proudly leave the country “secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people begin a new chapter in history, free from tyranny and full of hope for prosperity and peace.” Later on his trip to the Middle East, speaking of the human cost of the war, he added, “I think the price has been worth it.” .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175484/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_lessons_from_lost_wars_in_2012/#more

[ixion]

1. It wasn't worth it, Mr. Panetta. It wasn't worth the money, lives or sorrow that it wrought.

and really the only silver lining is that it was the beginning of the end of Pax Americana.

[Denninmi]

2. Yeah, funny how those Thousand Year Empire things never seem to work out.

The Thousand Year Reich lasted what, 12 years?

The Soviet Union lasted roughly 70.

Us, well, we're swirling the drain now at 235 1/2, so I guess better than some.

[ixion]

4. We weren't really in the empire club until WWII.

so it's only been 70 years or so.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

3. Engelhardt swings and misses.

The military of the self-proclaimed single greatest power of planet Earth, whose leaders once considered the occupation of the Middle East the key to future global policy and planned for a multi-generational garrisoning of Iraq, had been sent packing.

A misguided foreign policy is the product of a mentally weak ruling class, not a weak military. The US has NEVER lost a war. We have simply grown weary of policing some of the world's "neighborhoods."

[ixion]

5. Policing? Try State Sponsored Terror.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

9. Yeah, I suppose I should have included quotations around "policing."

In any case, my point was that our military does not LOSE wars. Unfortunately, they are victims of the moral cowardice and empty strategies of our ruling class, who have placed them in "wars", that resulted in one stalemate after another.

[ixion]

10. Appreciate the clarification.

I agree that the ruling class creates these faux 'wars' (I personally don't think we've actually been in a real war since WWII).

I think that saying we will never lose a conflict, though, is flawed. Just like no system (bank/gov't/universe, etc) is too-big-to-fail, no military is immutably incapable of defeat. However, when the deck is stacked as it was in Iraq, where we're beating on a much less powerful nation, I think the odds are more in favor of your premise.

[Kurmudgeon]

6. Bush wanted vengeance for the attempt on his daddy, Mission Accomplished.

With I'm sure, plenty of prodding from Halliburton Dick seeking profits from the US Treasury.
Blaming Obama or dragging out this "Pax Americana" nonsense just obscures that fact.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Flaw in the article...

"It was to be the war that would establish empire as an American fact. It would result in a thousand-year Pax Americana. It was to be 'mission accomplished' all the way. And then, of course, it wasn’t. And then, almost nine dismal years later, it was over (sorta)."

-------

The author buys "Project for a New American Century" rhetoric too easily. I figured the Bushwhacks, early on, for looters and plunderers, not builders of anything--and I think that that intuition was right. Hitler, for instance, built a great industrial war machine with which he then tried to carry out his psycho plan for dominating the world. What did the Bushwhacks build? Nothing! Indeed, they bankrupted an existing industrial war machine. The U.S. was bleeding jobs and manufacturing throughout their junta and is now suffering a second Depression. The U.S. was in the black when they started and is now trillions of dollars in debt--for what? FOR WHAT?

The U.S. still had some credibility in the world, when they started, and now has none. The Romans dominated the world for something like 500 years not only because of their military but also because they had a credible system of laws, culture (including widespread literacy) and colonial rule called "Pax Romana"--world peace. If you went along with Rome, you prospered. If you went along with Rome, you benefited from their laws, their protection and their tolerance. This is the kind of credibility that the U.S. came out of WW II possessing. The Bush Junta just blew it all to hell.

The list goes on and on of things they did not do that are necessary to "empire." They weren't building anything. They were, a) destroying an obstacle to transglobal corporate rule (U.S. democracy--us), and b) looting us blind.

Of course, there were 'true believer' neo-cons involved but I think that, in the end, it was the looters and plunderers who prevailed. Early key: Halliburton, the VP's own company which was still paying him something like a million dollars a year, getting a no-bid contract for the war on Iraq. That was hardly a blip in the corporate 'news' but I did notice it, as it flew by. WTF? --I thought. Second key: A billion dollars "gone missing" in Iraq. And so on. Frigging looters--with loyalty to nothing but their own fat pockets and fatcat global cronies--and no--zero! zilch!--loyalty to the American people, not even in a "nationalistic" nazi sense.

The "Project for a New American Century" rhetoric was, in a sense, cover for transglobal corporate, bankster and war profiteer interests. It has nothing to do with the U.S.--"land of the free/home of the brave"--dominating the world, and everything to do with transglobal interests hijacking the U.S. military for resource wars that were and are of no benefit to the people of the U.S. and have in fact destroyed our country.

I think it's important to pinpoint this--the true motives of the Bush Junta--and that includes NOT accepting THEIR rhetoric for what they were about. What they were really about was, a) THIEVERY, on a truly unprecedented scale, and b) transglobal corporate domination of the world by, among other things, bankrupting the "land of the free/home of the brave," assaulting every progressive tradition, busting U.S. education and other social programs, breaking U.S. commitment to the "rule of law, upending our democracy and crippling our people as a progressive force in the world. Any appeal they made to American "patriotism" or "exceptionalism" was entirely phony.

The story of the Harts--whose son was killed early on, in the war on Iraq, by an I.E.D. because the Bushwhacks had failed to provide body armor and armored vehicles to U.S. troops in Iraq, illustrates this perfectly. To the Bushwhacks, U.S. troops were, literally, "cannon fodder." The Harts started the campaign that eventually--circa 2004/2005--got body armor and armored vehicles to the troops in Iraq. They saved thousands of lives that the Bushwhacks didn't care about. As Mrs. Hart has said, "How can you start a war of choice and NOT provide such basic protection for your soldiers?" The answer (entirely mine) is that you have to be shit-heads with a corporate/looting agenda to do so.

That, too, of course (body armor) feeds the war profiteers--another element in this ugly picture. Yet another "private contractor" in what has become the filthiest business in the history of the world. But the tale is a revealing one. The Bushwhacks never thought of that--how to protect U.S. soldiers from what would surely be an insurgency. They had to be strongarmed into it, by grieving parents!

[Kaleko]

11. Terrifically astute analysis.

Posts like yours make me change my mind when I'm just about ready to leave DU behind.

[bemildred]

8. Right, but the domestic political status quo was preserved, and lots of money was made. nt