War, What Is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing

[eridani]

.http://www.nationofchange.org/news/2016/02/26/war-what-is-it-good-for-absolutely-nothing/

Looking back on almost 15 years in which the United States has been engaged in something like permanent war in the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa, one thing couldn’t be clearer: the planet’s sole superpower with a military funded and armed like none other and a “defense” budget larger than the next seven countries combined (three times as large as number two spender, China) has managed to accomplish — again, quite literally — absolutely nothing, or perhaps (if a slight rewrite of that classic song were allowed) less than nothing.

Unless, of course, you consider an expanding series of failed states, spreading terror movements, wrecked cities, countries hemorrhaging refugees, and the like as accomplishments. In these years, no goal of Washington — not a single one — has been accomplished by war. This has proven true even when, in the first flush of death and destruction, victory or at least success was hailed, as in Afghanistan in 2001 (“You helped Afghanistan liberate itself — for a second time,” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to U.S. special operations forces), Iraq in 2003 (“Mission accomplished“), or Libya in 2011 (“We came, we saw, he died,” Hillary Clinton on the death of autocrat Muammar Gaddafi).

Of all forms of American military might in this period, none may have been more destructive or less effective than air power. U.S. drones, for instance, have killed incessantly in these years, racking up thousands of dead Pakistanis, Afghans, Iraqis, Yemenis, Syrians, and others, including top terror leaders and their lieutenants as well as significant numbers of civilians and even children, and yet the movements they were sent to destroy from the top down have only proliferated. In a region in which those on the ground are quite literally helpless against air power, the U.S. Air Force has been repeatedly loosed, from Afghanistan in 2001 to Syria and Iraq today, without challenge and with utter freedom of the skies. Yet, other than dead civilians and militants and a great deal of rubble, the long-term results have been remarkably pitiful.

[truedelphi]

1. Just watched the movie "Rock The Kasbah" last night.

There is a statement in the movie toward the end where the Bill Murray character is addressing the renegade war lords in Afghanistan. He says something to the effect of "Who are you? Well you are warlords, and some of you get money from the US for your weapons and that is what cements your power and wealth. And some of you get your money from the Taliban. And that is what cements your power and wealth. And maybe what most of you are actually aiming for is to get money from both the US and the Taliban."

And it is depressing to think of how greed of the politicians, the armaments manufacturers and sales people, as well as that of "the warlords" has destroyed the globe. It is not what the majority of people in the world want to have happen, but it doesn't seem like we can stop it.

[Divernan]

2. How DARE you call transfer of wealth to the 1 percent "nothing"?!?!?!

The blood-soaked, profiteering Masters of the Universe, i.e., Wall Street, know full well that endless wars serve the best interests of Big Oil and the Military Industrial Complex. They are the gold standard as mechanisms to transfer wealth upward, always upward, to Infinity and Beyond!

Seriously, back in the 70's, my kids and I had breakfast every morning under a wall-hung, flower childlike poster which said, "War is not good for children and other living things." That is a universal and endless truth.

[eomer]

3. + $1 trillion

And then multiply several times over to begin to get the significance of what you said.