Thanks to George Bush, Talks With Iran Make Sense

[unhappycamper]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Thanks-to-George-Bush-Tal-by-John-Grant-Anti-war_Bush-Admin_Bush-Admin_Bush-Admin-Secrecy-140110-111.html

Thanks to George Bush, Talks With Iran Make Sense
By John Grant
OpEdNews Op Eds 1/10/2014 at 19:51:51

US military history from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan is too often a combination of destructive stumbling around followed by an effort to sustain and project forward the notion of US power and exceptionalism. To forge another narrative is very difficult.

There's the blind rush to war to put in its place some faction halfway around the world that has not played ball with US leaders. Next, there's the moment military leaders realize they must fend off a local opposition they had not anticipated. Finally, there's the inevitable condition of weariness over the killing, dying and destruction, leading to a withdrawal once that can be managed in a face-saving manner that sustains the delusion that the whole enterprise was honorable.

I made two trips to Iraq, one in December 2003, and another the following month, January 2004. Both entailed hair-raising 12-hour back-and-forth dashes across the Anbar desert in a large SUV sometimes doing 110 MPH from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad. This was at the moment US military commanders realized, shock and awe aside, its invasion/occupation had flushed out a formidable resistance movement.

~snip~

The task of controlling the story of a huge US military operation like Iraq has become vastly more sophisticated since the days of Vietnam when the press was allowed more rope and the killing numbers were much greater. Today, the real story is kept under an extremely tight regime of secrecy. The fact is, no one in the business of post-World War Two imperial US military policy wants the real story to be made public.