![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Apr. 24th, 2011
What is it good for?
Apr. 24th, 2011 02:19 pmOnly an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts.
-- Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik)
The Libya thing really makes me angry. Why are we wasting our national resources on yet another pointless military adventure?
It's bad enough that once before, in Vietnam, we sacrificed 50,000 American lives and probably a million Vietnamese, in several years of fighting to no good end. But afterwards, despite having "never get involved in a land war in Asia" drilled into our heads, we allowed ourselves to be sucked into Afghanistan -- even after seeing the Soviet Union waste a decade and vast numbers of men and machines in that quagmire. And then we marched blithely into Iraq, overthrew its secular nationalist government, and spend eight years and more than a trillion dollars propping up a new government led by friends of Iran.
Republicans always seem to like to compare government with business, which it is not. But in cases such as these, I think the comparison is apt: why would any sane investor embark on a venture which even in the rosiest scenario yields no profit? And having done so once -- no, twice before -- and been burned, he or she would surely have to be the king of fools to do it yet again. Yet here we are poking our nose into a civil war in Libya, even while continuing to pour money and blood into Afghanistan. And if we win, what do we get?
Absolutely nothing.
Meanwhile, our national budget is drastically out of balance. The Republicans want to cut health public education, infrastructure maintenance, health care for the elderly, and a host of other essential services to pay for these stupid wars. Our ill-chosen leader, President Obama, seems to think this is a capital idea, and is looking more and more like his predecessor George W. Bush every day.
And why are we fighting these wars? To make Afghanistan safe for democracy? To stop Qadhdhafi's invasion force before it lands in New York City? Bullshit.
I've said it before: this country spends far too much on its military. Our military capabilities are so much greater than those of anyone else in the world that they represent more a temptation to mischief than a guarantee of peace. As George W. Bush demonstrated, the President of the United States can attack with impunity pretty much anyone he wants to attack, anywhere in the world. There is no longer a Soviet Union to make us think twice, no longer a balance of power in the world. And so we waste our energies, our wealth, and our blood dashing ourselves on every rock from here to the far side of the world. This has got to stop.
THIS. HAS. GOT. TO. STOP.
If Barack Obama wants my support, he's going to have to stop these wars. If he doesn't, I'll vote for someone who will. If no one will, then I'll decline to vote at all. That has to be the bottom line.
It can't be our business who runs Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya. We don't have the right to slaughter thousands of unfortunates who happen to be in the way of our bombs and bullets in our crusades against this or that villain.
In 1956, Britain and France, in partnership with our favorite ally, Israel, went after another Arabic-speaking dictator, Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser. Dwight Eisenhower, who was President at the time, had the wisdom to call them off, even threatening to bankrupt the British if they persisted in their quest. Barack Obama could have vetoed the Libya intervention; he didn't need Congress or the Republican party's approval. The decision was his, as it was in Afghanistan and Iraq once he became President, and he has consistently chosen to sacrifice our vital interests -- our interest in a strong economy and a healthy federal balance sheet; our interest in not having thousand of our soldiers die for nothing, and in not having to compensate veterans for the rest of their lives for crippling injuries; our interest in not alienating whole populations of southern Asia and northern Africa -- in pursuit of Pyrrhic victories.
There is such a thing as imperial overstretch. It undid the Austro-Spanish empire in the seventeenth century, Napoleon in the nineteenth, and Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union in the twentieth. And right now, we are its poster child.
I'm sorry I ever voted for Barack Obama. He seems woefully inadequate to his office right now.
-- Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik)
The Libya thing really makes me angry. Why are we wasting our national resources on yet another pointless military adventure?
It's bad enough that once before, in Vietnam, we sacrificed 50,000 American lives and probably a million Vietnamese, in several years of fighting to no good end. But afterwards, despite having "never get involved in a land war in Asia" drilled into our heads, we allowed ourselves to be sucked into Afghanistan -- even after seeing the Soviet Union waste a decade and vast numbers of men and machines in that quagmire. And then we marched blithely into Iraq, overthrew its secular nationalist government, and spend eight years and more than a trillion dollars propping up a new government led by friends of Iran.
Republicans always seem to like to compare government with business, which it is not. But in cases such as these, I think the comparison is apt: why would any sane investor embark on a venture which even in the rosiest scenario yields no profit? And having done so once -- no, twice before -- and been burned, he or she would surely have to be the king of fools to do it yet again. Yet here we are poking our nose into a civil war in Libya, even while continuing to pour money and blood into Afghanistan. And if we win, what do we get?
Absolutely nothing.
Meanwhile, our national budget is drastically out of balance. The Republicans want to cut health public education, infrastructure maintenance, health care for the elderly, and a host of other essential services to pay for these stupid wars. Our ill-chosen leader, President Obama, seems to think this is a capital idea, and is looking more and more like his predecessor George W. Bush every day.
And why are we fighting these wars? To make Afghanistan safe for democracy? To stop Qadhdhafi's invasion force before it lands in New York City? Bullshit.
I've said it before: this country spends far too much on its military. Our military capabilities are so much greater than those of anyone else in the world that they represent more a temptation to mischief than a guarantee of peace. As George W. Bush demonstrated, the President of the United States can attack with impunity pretty much anyone he wants to attack, anywhere in the world. There is no longer a Soviet Union to make us think twice, no longer a balance of power in the world. And so we waste our energies, our wealth, and our blood dashing ourselves on every rock from here to the far side of the world. This has got to stop.
THIS. HAS. GOT. TO. STOP.
If Barack Obama wants my support, he's going to have to stop these wars. If he doesn't, I'll vote for someone who will. If no one will, then I'll decline to vote at all. That has to be the bottom line.
It can't be our business who runs Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya. We don't have the right to slaughter thousands of unfortunates who happen to be in the way of our bombs and bullets in our crusades against this or that villain.
In 1956, Britain and France, in partnership with our favorite ally, Israel, went after another Arabic-speaking dictator, Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser. Dwight Eisenhower, who was President at the time, had the wisdom to call them off, even threatening to bankrupt the British if they persisted in their quest. Barack Obama could have vetoed the Libya intervention; he didn't need Congress or the Republican party's approval. The decision was his, as it was in Afghanistan and Iraq once he became President, and he has consistently chosen to sacrifice our vital interests -- our interest in a strong economy and a healthy federal balance sheet; our interest in not having thousand of our soldiers die for nothing, and in not having to compensate veterans for the rest of their lives for crippling injuries; our interest in not alienating whole populations of southern Asia and northern Africa -- in pursuit of Pyrrhic victories.
There is such a thing as imperial overstretch. It undid the Austro-Spanish empire in the seventeenth century, Napoleon in the nineteenth, and Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union in the twentieth. And right now, we are its poster child.
I'm sorry I ever voted for Barack Obama. He seems woefully inadequate to his office right now.