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Bush Calls on France for Help
War without end
By Paul Craig Roberts
12/02/08 "ICH"
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“We
support the troops!”
That’s the excuse the Democrats have given for continuing to
fund Bush’s aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan. But, of
course, war funding doesn’t support the troops. War funding
supports an evil machine that chews up and spits out the lives
and well being of the troops, along with that of hundreds of
thousands of Iraqi and Afghan, men, women, and children. War
funding supports Bush’s aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan and
his continuing efforts to occupy both countries in order to turn
them into puppet states.
Polls show that a majority of the troops and their families do
not support Bush’s aggression. The fact that Ron Paul’s
campaign for the Republican presidential nomination received the
lion’s share of contributions from military families also
underlines the great divide between the troops and those who
would “support” them by keeping them in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What all those ribbon decals on the back of SUVs, which proclaim
“support the troops,” really mean is support Bush’s wars of
aggression against Muslims.
According to the Washington Post (Feb. 9, 2008), Bush’s $3.1
trillion federal budget provides no funding for his
proposal in his State of the Union address to permit military
members to transfer their unused education benefits to family
members. Bush got applause for his nationally televised words,
but the troops and their families got no money in his budget.
Government analysts calculate the education benefits would cost
in the range of $1-2 billion annually--the cost of funding
the war for two days.
The only money that Bush and Congress want to give the troops is
what is required to keep them at war. Everyone has read the
horror stories of the lack of care for the physically and
emotionally wounded troops who have made it back from Iraq.
In contrast, to fund Bush’s war, Bush and Congress have already
spent in out-of-pocket and future costs at least $1,000
billion. Every American can draw up lists of better uses of
this immense fortune than blowing up a country’s infrastructure
and killing hundreds of thousands of its citizens.
Nothing good whatsoever has been accomplished by Bush’s
invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. It was obvious to anyone
with a lick of sense in 2002, six months prior to Bush’s
invasion of Iraq on March 18, 2003, that an invasion would be a
strategic blunder. William S. Lind, myself and others made that
prediction in October, 2002. Three years later, Lt. Gen.
William Odom, former director of the National Security Agency,
vindicated us by declaring Bush’s invasion of Iraq to be “the
greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history.” If the head of
the NSA doesn’t know a “strategic disaster” when he sees one,
who does?
Gen. Odom’s assessment is certainly correct. Bush, Cheney, the
neocons, and the sycophant media were completely wrong. Look at
the situation today. Unable to defeat the Sunni insurgency, the
US “superpower” has had to resort to paying tens of millions of
dollars to insurgency leaders to bribe them not to attack US
troops. In addition, Bush is supplying the insurgents with
weapons “to fight al Qaeda.” The Sunni leaders gladly accept
the money and weapons, but how long can they survive being
collaborators with the American enemy that has destroyed their
country and the Sunni place in the sun?
It was obvious to everyone but Bush and the neocons that
overthrowing Saddam Hussein in the name of democracy would put
the majority Shi’ites, who are allied with Iran, in place as the
new rulers of Iraq. So far the Iraqi Shi’ites have bided their
time and have not joined in earnest the insurgency against the
US occupation. Instead, they, like the Sunnis, have directed
most of their attention to cleansing neighborhoods of one
another. The reasons that violence--although still higher than
Americans could live with--is down are that most of the
neighborhoods are now segregated, al Sadr has ordered his
militia to stand down, and the Sunni insurgents are being paid
not to attack US troops.
Bush started a war, and now to avoid losing it Bush pays Iraqis
not to attack US troops!
The Sunnis and Shi’ites are stronger than ever, while the US
troops are worn down and demoralized from multiple lengthy
combat tours that violate traditional US military policy.
It was also obvious that Bush’s invasions would destabilize
nuclear-armed Pakistan. On February 8, seasoned foreign
correspondent Warren Strobel reported for the McClatchy
newspapers that “Pakistan is now the central front in America’s
war on terror.” On February 9, the Washington Post reported:
“Pakistan faces a growing threat from a new generation of
radicalized, battle-hardened militants who embrace jihad and
have become allied with local and international terrorists
intent on toppling the pro-Western government [shorthand for
paid US puppet], a senior U.S. intelligence official told
reporters yesterday.”
US officials have been pressing Pakistan, to no effect, to allow
US troops to join the Pakistani army’s fight against Pakistani
tribes allied with the Taliban. US officials, “speaking on
condition of anonymity,” are trying to muster support for an
expanded US military role in Pakistan by alleging that Osama bin
Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar are in Pakistan
with their top commanders. Bush wants to bomb Pakistan in order
to win the war in Afghanistan.
With all available US troops tied down in Iraq, the US is using
NATO soldiers as mercenaries to try to counter a resurgent
Taliban. Europeans are tiring of their role as an European
proxy for America’s legions, and the NATO commander speaks of a
NATO defeat in Afghanistan.
NATO was an alliance created to resist a Soviet invasion of
Europe. The US has kept an unnecessary NATO alive for 18 years
as a source of troops for its foreign adventures. Europeans
dislike being mercenaries for American Empire, especially one
that slaughters civilians.
Desperate for troops, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is
trying to scare Europeans with the threat of “international
terrorism,” but Europeans know that the best way to bring
terrorism to Europe is to send troops to fight Muslims for the
Americans. Whether Gates will get the German and French
soldiers that he so desperately needs depends on whether the US
can give the German and French leaders, Angela Merkel and
Nicolas Sarkozy, enough billions of dollars to divide among
their parties to embolden them to override public opinion and
send their soldiers to die for US and Israeli hegemony in the
Middle East.
Gates told Europe that NATO’s survival is at stake: “We must
not--we cannot--become a two-tiered alliance of those willing to
fight and those who are not.” In a rare bit of honesty for an
American government official, Gates admitted at the NATO
conference in Munich last week that Europeans’ anger at the US
over Iraq is the reason Europe won’t send enough troops to fight
the Taliban in Afghanistan, thus putting what Gates
disingenuously called “the international mission in Afghanistan”
at risk of failure.
The Afghanistan “mission,” like the Iraq “mission,” was a
mission for US and Israel hegemony. The official reason for
invading Afghanistan was 9/11 and the alleged refusal of the
Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden. It had nothing whatsoever
to do with Europe, NATO, or any “international mission.” The
official reason for invading Iraq was alleged, but nonexistent,
weapons of mass destruction that allegedly threatened
America--another, but more deadly, 9/11 in the making according
to the Bush regime.
If the US now needs foreign troops to save its bacon in these
two lost wars, it should demand them from Israel. Israel is why
the US is at war in the Middle East. Let Israel supply the
troops. The neocons who dominated the Bush regime and took
America to illegal wars are allied with the extreme right-wing
government of Israel. The goal of neoconservatism is to remove
all obstacles to Israeli territorial expansion. The Zionist aim
is to grab the entirely of the West Bank and southern Lebanon,
with more to follow later.
Remember “mission accomplished”? Remember all the strutting
neocons with their promises of a “cakewalk war”? Remember all
the ignorant bragging about having “defeated the Taliban”? All
of these lies were designed to tie American down in interminable
wars in the Middle East for Israel’s benefit. There is no other
reason for Bush’s invasions. We know for certain that Bush and
his entire administration lied through their teeth about the
Taliban and about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
What a total crock of ignorance and deception the Bush regime
represents. Bush, defeated in Iraq, defeated in Afghanistan,
with Pakistan crumbling in front of his eyes, is now reduced to
begging the French, whom it was such grand sport for his neocon
officials to denigrate, to send soldiers to save his ass in
Afghanistan.
What a laughing stock Bush has made of America. What ruination
this utter idiot and his supporters have brought to America.
What total traitors the neoconservatives are. Every last one of
them should be immediately arrested for high treason.
Neonconservatives are America’s greatest enemies, and they
control our government! All Americans have to show for six
years of Bush’s “war on terror” is an incipient police state.
Now standing in the wings is mad John “hundred year war”
McCain. Will the American electorate wipe out the Republican
Party before this insane party wipes out America?
Paul
Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during
President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the
Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments,
including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and
International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior
Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was
awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois
Mitterrand.
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