This is a guest post, sent to me on Tuesday, by reader Craig Cantoni, a former military officer whose father is in a veteran’s cemetery.
Cantoni presents a historical picture on many levels as to what has happened and is still going on in the Middle East.
How Americans Came to Die in the Middle East by Craig Cantoni
The writing of this historical synopsis began yesterday, Memorial Day. It is an attempt by this former artillery officer with a father buried in a veteran’s cemetery to understand why brave Americans were sent to their death in the Middle East and are still dying there.
The hope is that we finally can learn from history and not keep repeating the same mistakes.
It’s important to stick to the facts, since the history of the Middle East already has been grossly distorted by partisan finger-pointing and by denial and cognitive dissonance among the politicians, foreign policy experts (in their own minds), and media blowhards and literati on the left and right, who now claim that they had nothing to do with grievous policy mistakes that they had once endorsed.
The key question, as in all history, is where to begin the history lesson.
We could go all the way back to religious myths, especially the ones about Moses and the Ten Commandments and about Mohammed and his flying horse. Or on a related note, we could go back to the schism that took place between Shia and Sunni Muslims in the seventh century. Such history is relevant, because American soldiers have been foolishly inserted in the middle of the competing myths and irreconcilable schism, but without the inserters acknowledging the religious minefields and steering clear of them.
We also could go back to the First World War and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, when France and Britain carved up the Middle East into unnatural client states, when Arabs were given false promises of self-determination, when American geologists masqueraded as archeologists as they surreptitiously surveyed for oil, and when the United States joined Saudi Arabia at the hip through the joint oil venture of Aramco.
Another starting point could be 1948, when the United States, under the lead of President Truman, supported the formal establishment of the Jewish State of Israel, thus reversing the longstanding opposition to Zionism by many (most?) American and European Jews and non-Jews. One can endlessly debate the plusses and minuses of our alliance with Israel, as well as the morality of Israel’s violent founding and the violent Palestinian resistance. But it’s undeniable that the alliance has led many Muslims to put a target on Uncle Sam’s back.
Still another starting point could be the 1953 coup d’état against the democratically-elected Iranian President Mohammad Mosaddegh, orchestrated by the CIA in conjunction with the Brits. The coup was triggered when Mosaddegh demanded an auditing of the books of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, a British company known today as BP. He threatened nationalization when the British refused to allow the audit. He was replaced by the Shah of Iran, who was seen by many Iranians and Arabs as a puppet of the United States. (Ironically, during the Second World War, Great Britain and the Soviet Union had occupied Iran and deposed an earlier shah.)
It’s considered unpatriotic to ask how my fellow Americans would feel if the tables had been turned and Iranians had deposed an American president and replaced him with their lackey. Therefore, I won’t ask.
It also would be unpatriotic to ask how we’d feel if Iranians had shot down one of our passenger jets, as we had shot down one of theirs in 1988 as it was crossing the Persian Gulf to Dubai from Tehran. Again, I’m not asking.
Anyway, let’s return to the Shah. Starting with President Nixon and continuing with President Carter, the USA sold weapons to the Shah worth billions of dollars. There was even an agreement to sell nuclear reactors to him. Those weapons would later be used by Iran against the U.S. in the Persian Gulf after we had sided with Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran.
At a state dinner in Tehran on December 31, 1977, the Shah toasted President Carter. Carter responded effusively, saying that Iran was “an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world.” He went on to say: This is a great tribute to you, Your Majesty, and to your leadership and to the respect and the admiration and love which your people give to you.”
Actually, most Iranians hated the Shah. Two years later, on January 16, 1979, the unpopular Shah fled into exile after losing control of the country to Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his Iranian Revolution.
Then in October of that year, Carter allowed the Shah to come to the USA for medical treatment. Responding with rage, Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took embassy personnel hostage, in a hostage drama that would last 444 days, including a failed attempt to rescue the hostages that left dead American soldiers and burnt helicopters in Iran. The drama ended on the day that Carter left office.
But none of the above events is where our history of American lives lost in the Middle East should begin. It should begin in the summer of 1979, with a report written by a low-level Defense Department official by the name of Paul Wolfowitz. His “Limited Contingency Study” assessed the political, geopolitical, sectarian, ethnic, and military situation in the Middle East and recommended a more active American involvement in the region, including possible military intervention to blunt the Soviet Union’s influence, protect our access to oil, and thwart the ambitions of Iraq under its dictator, Saddam Hussein.
Wolfowitz would later become a deputy to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld under the presidency of George W. Bush.
Note that Wolfowitz’s paper was written long before 9/11 and long before the toppling of Saddam Hussein in the Second Gulf War after he was accused of having weapons of mass destruction.
Until the Wolfowitz report, the USA had taken a rather passive and indirect role in the Middle East, placing it secondary to other geopolitical matters and using proxies and intelligence “spooks” to protect its interests in the region. Of course this low-level interference in the affairs of other nations was not seen as low level by the targets of the actions. To use common vernacular, it pissed them off, just as it would have pissed us off if the roles had been reversed. But again, it’s unpatriotic to consider the feelings of others, especially if they are seen as the enemy, or backwards, or religious zealots.
Strategic and tactical thinking began to change with the Wolfowitz paper. Plans started to be developed for military action to replace more benign approaches. Eventually, the plans indeed resulted in military actions, ranging from full-scale war to bombing from the air to drone warfare, in such places as Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia (the locale of “Blackhawk Down”), with side actions outside of the Middle East in Bosnia and Kosovo.
In each case the American military performed admirably and often exceptionally, but less so for Defense Department analysts, for Congress and the White House, for the press on the left and right, or for the public at large—most of whom got caught up in the passions of the moment and didn’t understand the cultures they were dealing with and didn’t think through the unintended consequences of military actions in lands where Western concepts of justice, fairness, equality, tolerance, pluralism, religious freedom, diversity, and multiculturalism were as foreign and out of place as an American tourist wearing flipflops and shorts in a mosque.
America’s involvement in Afghanistan is instructive.
Our interest in the godforsaken country began with the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, an invasion that was triggered by Soviet concern that the instability of the country would spread to the nearby Soviet Union.
Trapped in a cold war time warp, the USA mistakenly thought that the invasion might be a precursor to the Soviets advancing through Iran to capture oil fields in the Persian Gulf. Both the conservative and liberal press advanced this notion and accused President Carter of being weak. It was a variant of the domino theory that had led to the Vietnam War, and it grossly overestimated the military and economic prowess of the Soviet Union—a myth that continues today with ludicrous concerns that enfeebled Russia will use the North Caucus region as a springboard to conquer Europe.
The outcry over the invasion of Afghanistan led Carter to issue the Carter Doctrine, which essentially made the Middle East a protectorate of the United States. Arrangements began to be coordinated with allies in the region to build American military bases in the Persian Gulf and increase arms sales and foreign aid.
Countervailing views were ignored, including the opinion of Hermann Eilts, former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Saudi Arabia and a negotiator who had helped to broker the Egypt-Israel peace agreement. He warned that American military action in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere would be viewed as “blatant imperialism” and feed anti-Americanism.
In any event, instead of sweeping through Iran and into the oil fields of the Persian Gulf, the Soviets became mired in the land of poppy seeds, goats, and tribal hatreds, just as we would later follow suit and where we remain mired to this day. The costs of the Soviet war in Afghanistan was a factor in Perestroika and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union—events that probably would have happened on their own without President Reagan’s efforts to bankrupt the Soviet Union through an arms race and proxy wars.
Speaking of Reagan, there is a famous photo of him meeting in the White House in 1983 with Afghan jihadists in their beards and traditional robes and turbans. At the time, the USA was arming its future enemies in Afghanistan, at a total cost of over $4 billion. Conservative talk-radio hosts would be apoplectic if there were such a meeting between President Obama and jihadists, but they have conveniently forgotten the photo of Reagan.
Also forgotten is the Reagan administration referring to the mujahedin as “noble savages” who were fighting “for an abstract idea of freedom.” Afghanistan Day was added to the official state calendar as a way of showing support for the “freedom fighters” who were defending the “principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability,” including “the right to practice religion according to the dictates of conscience.” Reagan even dedicated an upcoming flight of the space shuttle Columbia to Afghans who demonstrated “man’s highest aspirations for freedom” by resisting the Soviet occupation.
After the Soviets departed from Afghanistan, Americans on the left and right celebrated what supposedly had been done by America to speed the departure. Even Hollywood got into the act with the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War.” But as Andrew J. Bacevich writes in America’s War for the Middle East, “A raging bout of victory disease had made them [American policymakers] stupid.” (Parts of this commentary are based on the superb book.)
Afghanistan wasn’t the first or last time that the USA would arm terrorists, despots, and future enemies.
Another time was the Iran-Contra affair, in which the Reagan administration unlawfully funneled arms to Iran.
Still another was the arming of Saddam Hussein in his long war with Iran from 1980 to 1988. While we were arming Hussein, our ally Israel was selling U.S. arms and spare parts to the Khomeini regime.
Yet another time was the arming of Saudi Arabia and the expansion of an American military presence in the kingdom, especially after Saddam attacked Kuwait in 1990 and President George H. W. Bush responded with the First Gulf War. A wealthy Saudi took exception to the American presence in his country and America’s interference in what he saw as a matter between Arabs. His name was Osama bin Laden.
It didn’t matter to the USA then, and doesn’t seem to matter now, that Saudi Arabia was a major exporter of terrorism and the home of the radical sect of Islam known as Wahhaism, or Salafism. Later, of course, 15 of the 19 terrorists involved with the 9/11 terrorist attack would be Saudis. Yet Saddam Hussein and Iraq were to be blamed as the haven of al Qaeda.
Notably, once the Iraqi army was defeated in the First Gulf War, the senior Bush did not go on to occupy Iraq and depose Saddam. Having once headed the CIA, Bush no doubt understood that doing so would remove the Sunni counterbalance to Shiite Iran. His son, George W. Bush, apparently had no such qualms in 2003 at the start of the Second Gulf War, which not only resulted in the occupation of Iraq but also removed the Sunni counterbalance to Shiite Iran, as well as creating a power vacuum in which ISIS (aka ISIL) took root in Iraq and Syria.
Most of the American media also had no qualms about the Second Gulf War. Max Boot, the former editorial editor of the Wall Street Journal, was typical. He wrote in the Weekly Standard that historians would see the invasion of Iraq as “the moment when the powerful antibiotic known as democracy was introduced into the diseased environment of the Middle East, and began to transform the region for the better.”
An acquaintance of mine, Charles Goyette, saw things differently. A talk-radio host on conservative KFYI in Phoenix, Goyette was learned in history and understood the folly of the invasion, which was such blasphemy in talk-radio circles that he was replaced by a true believer.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s return to President Reagan, and in particular, his foray into Lebanon in 1982, a foray that followed Wolfowitz’s script for projecting U.S. power.
At first, the insertion of Marines into the middle of the Lebanon civil war seemed to be a success. Reagan and the media celebrated, just like George W. Bush and the media would later celebrate the American victory in the Second Gulf War, until the blowback from the victory rained on the celebrations.
There were two blowbacks to the intervention in Lebanon. The first was Israel standing by and doing nothing as Christian Phalangists massacred Palestinians in a refugee camp. The massacre would lead to the establishment of Hezbollah and to Reagan angrily denouncing Israel. By comparison, President Obama’s later snubbing of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu would look like a children’s game of friendly patty cake.
The second blowback was the terrorist bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 service personnel.
To his credit, Reagan withdrew American troops from Lebanon after the bombing. Tellingly, he wasn’t excoriated by the conservative press for doing so, unlike the outrage that would have occurred if President Obama had been the one turning tail.
Then there was Reagan’s hatred of the nut job and Libyan dictator Muammar Ghaddafi. Reagan thought that killing the head of Libya would stop the country from financing and exporting terrorism and would enable the blossoming of democracy. Reagan didn’t succeed in killing Ghaddafi, but if had succeeded, no doubt the outcome wouldn’t have been much different from when Obama would later be encouraged to come to the aid of Libyan rebels as part of the so-called Arab Spring.
Ghaddafi would be captured and killed by rebels in 2011, after a convoy he was riding in was bombed by a French fighter jet as part of NATO’s military actions in the country, led by the United States. Libya soon descended into chaos, civil war, and anarchy. Those who had encouraged Obama to take action in Libya would quickly forget their own complicity and blame Obama for not doing enough to stop the resultant bloodshed. Once again, it was believed that removing a strong man would magically enable the flourishing of Western-style liberty in Muslim lands.
To summarize, from when Wolfowitz wrote his paper in 1979 to the present, the following military campaigns and operations have taken place:
- Iraq: Desert Storm, Southern Watch, Desert Strike, Northern Watch, Desert Fox, Iraqi Freedom, New Dawn, Inherent Resolve
- Iran: Eagle Claw
- Afghanistan: Cyclone, Infinite Reach, Enduring Freedom, Freedom’s Sentinel
- Pakistan: Neptune Spear
- Persian Gulf: Earnest Will, Nimble Archer, Praying Mantis
- Syria: Inherent Resolve
- Saudi Arabia: Desert Shield, Desert Focus
- Yemen: Determined Response
- Somalia: Restore Hope, Gothic Serpent
- Bosnia: Deny Flight, Joint Endeavor
- Kosovo: Allied Force, Joint Guardian
- Lebanon: Multinational Force
- Libya: El Dorado Canyon, Odyssey Dawn
- Egypt: Bright Star
- Sudan: Infinite Reach
Source: America’s War for the Greater Middle East
The cost of the foregoing campaigns and operations were 7,421 Americans killed, 52,278 Americans wounded, trillions of dollars spent, and Veteran’s hospitals overflowing with veterans with physical and psychological wounds. Yet with few exceptions in the Middle East, terrorism still thrives and democracy and liberal values have not. Maybe it’s time to question our assumptions and premises regarding the use of military power.
On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t have begun my history lesson with the Wolfowitz paper. Maybe I should’ve started over one hundred thousand years ago, when Homo sapiens stood upright, walked into the African savannah, and organized into clans and tribes to fight other clans and tribes over resources. Those with bones through their nose became the enemy of those with bones through their lip, just as today’s Crips and Bloods are enemies, just as Sunnis and Shiites are enemies, just as Israelis and Palestinians are enemies, and just as Islamists and American infidels are enemies.
Maybe humans are hardwired to fight other tribes. Maybe the reason that so many Americans have died in the Middle East is as simple and discouraging as that.
Craig J. Cantoni
Wel, sounds like wolf’s doctrine became the new American bible. No doubt the results are not good for Americans, but it is infinitely worse for those in the Middle East. A million or more killed, millions more wounded as well as turned into refugees or economically destitude. Must be one hell of an achievement by the beacon of democracy in the history of the world!
If even 1% of all the expenses on war would have been spent on energy related research and development USA would have been exporting fusion power plants all over the world some 20 years ago – the weight of the whole “natural resources part” of the equation in the economies would have diminished … It will still happen ( unless any big dickhead pushes the red button of course ), but wounds of the history cannot be erased easily – it took 3 generations for Europe to recover from the wounds of the Second World War …
I agree that the money could have been better spent elsewhere, but there’s no way we would have been exporting fusion reactors 20 years ago. Regardless of how much money we spent on research. I don’t realistically see fusion reactors in use for at least another 30 years. The money would have likely been best spent on domestic infrastructure projects like bridge repairs.
Nuclear fusion is likely never going to happen. We are multiple fundamental inventions away from being able to control fusion reactions on a scale that can provide reliable electric power.
Fusion is like jet packs. Everybody wants it, it has been demonstrated for years, but there are a few seemingly insurmountable steps in the way.
Very well written, excellent job. I have just a few quibbles. Ghaddafi might have been considered a nutjob by the West, but he had to be tough as he was trying to keep the various Arab tribes from killing each other. He supplied free medical, free dental, free education to his citizens. If you couldn’t get the education you needed in Libya, he sent you elsewhere, all expenses paid. He created a 1,500 mile pipeline from southern to northern Libya in order to supply fresh water to his citizens. He gave every married couple $50,000.00 (which had to be paid back eventually, but with no interest charged). Just before NATO took him out, he said:
“If one seeks to destabilize [Libya], there will be chaos, Bin Laden, armed factions. That is what will happen. You will have immigration, thousands of people will invade Europe from Libya. And there will no longer be anyone to stop them. Bin Laden will base himself in North Africa […]. You will have Bin Laden at your doorstep. This catastrophe will extend out of Pakistan and Afghanistan and reach all the way to North Africa.”
Libya is in chaos today. Perhaps Ghaddafi has been unfairly criticized, I don’t know.
Wolfowitz created the chaos we now see. The ME would be immeasurably better off with Gaddafi, Saddam and Assad in power instead of being overthrown. Now we have unremittant war from Tunis to India. Those refugees will destabilize Europe and destroy its economy and the EuroUn.
The link for the above quote from Ghaddafi is here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/31/libya-how-to-bring-down-a-nation/
James Hayward – totally agree with you on that.
It would be nice to blame all of this on one person, but as we know, most of these are simply useful idiots used as a rationalization for a larger agenda. We are lied to and manipulated to this very day. Do you think that is Wolfowitz as well? This is a much much larger agenda at hand and none of this is accident or unintended consequence.
Wolfowitz simply provided the excuse for a larger agenda to be implemented.
Sorry, the link for the above quote is:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/31/libya-how-to-bring-down-a-nation/
I’ve also previously read that the U.S. was in Afghanistan stirring up trouble, enticing Russia to enter into war there, just as they have stirred up trouble in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Iran…
As far as Obama goes, the following article pretty well nails him to the wall:
“President George W. Bush, in power from 2001 to 2009, behaved in a way the U.S. Founding Fathers would have strongly disapproved, since he vied with the Congress to concentrate the power to wage war in his own hands, using Congress as a rubber stamp.
One would have thought that newly elected President Barack Obama, in a democratic spirit, would have attempted to reverse this dangerous move toward turning the U.S. presidency into an initiator of foreign wars. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama did the reverse, increasing rather than reducing the president’s discretionary powers to wage wars.
Indeed, Nobel Peace Laureate Obama didn’t waste any time in arguing that he had, as U.S. president, the authority to wage war in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya, or elsewhere, without U.S. Congress’s approval…
What is more, President Obama has acted aggressively according to his theory of presidential war powers. He has launched eight times as many drone strikes in other countries as did President George W. Bush; and, according to his own boasting, he has “ordered military action in seven countries”. This is not a legacy he should be proud of.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/30/barack-obamas-legacy-what-happened/
Just read the whole article. The guy’s legacy will be an absolute disaster, the worst ever.
Sorry, the link for the above quote is here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/31/libya-how-to-bring-down-a-nation/
I read previously re Afghanistan that the U.S. were in there stirring up trouble before Russia ever moved in, almost enticing Russia to move, same things they’ve done in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Iran, etc.
As far as Mr. Nobel Peace Prize, he will go down as the worst president in history.
“President George W. Bush, in power from 2001 to 2009, behaved in a way the U.S. Founding Fathers would have strongly disapproved, since he vied with the Congress to concentrate the power to wage war in his own hands, using Congress as a rubber stamp.
One would have thought that newly elected President Barack Obama, in a democratic spirit, would have attempted to reverse this dangerous move toward turning the U.S. presidency into an initiator of foreign wars. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama did the reverse, increasing rather than reducing the president’s discretionary powers to wage wars.
Indeed, Nobel Peace Laureate Obama didn’t waste any time in arguing that he had, as U.S. president, the authority to wage war in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya, or elsewhere, without U.S. Congress’s approval, contending that previous so-called ‘use of force congressional authorizations’ remain in effect indefinitely. […]
What is more, President Obama has acted aggressively according to his theory of presidential war powers. He has launched eight times as many drone strikes in other countries as did President George W. Bush; and, according to his own boasting, he has “ordered military action in seven countries”. This is not a legacy he should be proud of.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/30/barack-obamas-legacy-what-happened/
Here’s what happened in Afghanistan before the Russians went in:
“Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”
http://www.counterpunch.org/1998/01/15/how-jimmy-carter-and-i-started-the-mujahideen/
And Obama’s legacy will not be a good one:
“President George W. Bush, in power from 2001 to 2009, behaved in a way the U.S. Founding Fathers would have strongly disapproved, since he vied with the Congress to concentrate the power to wage war in his own hands, using Congress as a rubber stamp.
One would have thought that newly elected President Barack Obama, in a democratic spirit, would have attempted to reverse this dangerous move toward turning the U.S. presidency into an initiator of foreign wars. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama did the reverse, increasing rather than reducing the president’s discretionary powers to wage wars.
Indeed, Nobel Peace Laureate Obama didn’t waste any time in arguing that he had, as U.S. president, the authority to wage war in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya, or elsewhere, without U.S. Congress’s approval, contending that previous so-called ‘use of force congressional authorizations’ remain in effect indefinitely. […]
What is more, President Obama has acted aggressively according to his theory of presidential war powers. He has launched eight times as many drone strikes in other countries as did President George W. Bush; and, according to his own boasting, he has “ordered military action in seven countries”. This is not a legacy he should be proud of.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/30/barack-obamas-legacy-what-happened/
While some presidents have been manipulated by bad intelligence and misplaced nationalistic fervor, I believe Obama is very clear eyed in his goals and how all of this chaos plays directly to them.
Again, I believe that there is a communist under-current to all of this, and as they made very clear from their movement’s inception, communism cannot survive independently, it requires all or nothing, world domination. It is not a quirk that communist states wall themselves off from the rest of the world, it is a prerequisite. No one who favors the communist or socialist ideology is willing to accept other free societies to exist along side, they must be dominated. Control…control of everything is their principle theme and independent thoughts and actions cannot be tolerated. In pursuit of their perfection, any disruption is unacceptable, efficiency is an absolute necessity as its productivity is so lean, and its promises so large, it cannot carry the burden of person freedoms that might disrupt their system.
Unity.harmony, and sacrifice of self to the State.
Our state department has been dominated by communist sympathisers since Wilson and FDR loaded it with communists while he was president. While we claimed to be fighting communism we were in fighting ever communist agenda into our system of government and especially education. We have pursued foreign policies that have only created destabilization and American discredit in EVERY instance. We have been at war with both communism and Islam for decades and yet any observation would show that they are both winning after trillions spent and thousands of lives. Do we REALLY think this is an accident? Many have warned us of all of this and have been routinely despatched and destroyed, yet it marches on. We see that the State department was instrumental in the forming of North Korea with the Yalta agreement, deliberately dissing Chiang Kai Shek in fact or of Mao. Just bad analysis…I don’t think so. The same in Cuba where we denied their government even unarmed surveillance to detect Castro’s rebels. Castro an accident after State reassures everyone that Castro is NOT communist and not a threat? I don’t think so. Read Skousen’s analysis of the community threat back in 1961 and tell me that none of it came true, that it is all simple coincidence. I don’t think so.
Now look at our war with radical Islam, just like our war with communists Vietnam and Korea, that somehow we lost. Communism and Islam have a great deal in common, which is no coincidence either. We watch as all supposed free states based upon capitalism are being undermined by all of this and how each government is becoming stronger and more restrictive to our freedoms based on “necessity” and backstopped with efficiency and convenience. You may want to call it fascism or anything else, but it all falls under the heading of the Communist agenda as stated clearly nearly 100 years ago. Does it ot seem odd that something that was seen as such a threat decades ago is a non issue, that one of the largest economic forces in our world today is communist, a country simultaneously destroying our economic foundation while destabilizing the world financial system? Is it all just fiction….everything fine and dandy while when we do find fault we go first to blame capitalism….the force that brought us out of a third world economy. Are we insane?
I sure hate auto spell check on tablets, and now we cannot edit our comments.
We forgive you.
An even better take is the book: Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present by Michael B Oren.
Excellent and well written analysis. Thank you for posting. The comments are exceptional in that they are on point, thoughtful, fact-filled and without snark or insult. They are a credit to you, Mish.
There’s no single person or party to point the finger at. Both republicans and democrats are to blame. What I hate is when Obama backers blame all his failings on Bush. These are the same people who talk about Hillary’s strong foreign policy record. The country needs a change of leadership and if it’s a socialist or a clownish celebrity, so be it. At a minimum it would be a bridge to better leadership.
Our policies are determined far more by The State Department and the Defense department life time employees. They hire and fire from within and have been building the staff to support their agenda for a hundred years or more. Who do we think provided the intelligence to our leaders too make “informed decisions”.
Our policies are determined far more by The State Department and the Defense department life time employees. They hire and fire from within and have been building the staff to support their agenda for a hundred years or more. Who do we think provided the intelligence to our leaders too make “informed decisions”.
This is the most brilliant apolitical non-denominational analysis of the millions of lives destroyed and US$ trillions wasted.
War is always a lose-lose situation. Countless families on both side of the aisle bear the burden of the loss. There will always be justification.Unfortunately a soldier’s duty is said to be to do and die. Why? What for? Is it necessary? is not allowed to be asked. Sad.
Which is why I forbade my children from becoming soldiers.
War does not determine who is right, it only determines who is left.
http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2016/05/30/obama-turning-local-police-american-citizens/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-turning-local-police-american-citizens
THAT was an excellent read.
Did anyone notice how, many times, it goes back to corporate accounting? That whole business model (in the ME) really is one sided, never symbiotic.
US is a modern day Rome. Tribal opposition is hard wired into humans which bodes ill for multicultural societies.
Agree completely. America can not return to greatness until the last Irishman is sent back.
We could go all the way back to the founding of islam, whose prophet is described in his very own “holy” book as a mass murderer, child rapist, sex slave trader, slave master, thief and a liar.
We could go all the way back to 200 years after this prophet died where islamic armies had invaded and occupied Christian Syria, Christian, Egypt, Christian Turkey, Christian North Africa, Hindu Afghanistan, Hindu Pakistan, Hindu India and Zoroastrian Iran – raping and killing and enslaving as they went until the populations were forcibly converted. ISIS are being good muslims following the example of the “perfect” life of the “perfect” muslim.
We could go back to when mulsim navies and raiders took over 1.5 million European slaves (even as far away as Ireland). When muslims armies were nearly at the gates of Paris, at the gates of Vienna and occupied and looted Rome. Raping and enslaving and converting by the sword as they went.
And all this happened without one American base in the middle east. Without one American soldier on the ground.
Mish – you act like the history of the middle east took place in a vacuum.
The real lessons learned from the Shah to 9/11 to today:
If you want peace in a muslim nation and the middle east, you need a brutal secular dictator(s).
And we shouldn’t have messed with that.
Seem to remember the moorish westward invasion was a bit of a walkover after the Roman empire self destructed due to germanic and gothic mass migrations southwards.
Put bluntly, everyone was conquering everyone for millenia. Many religions blossomed and were then repressed, many ethnic groups formed and were then absorbed or dispersed.
Fortunately for the Americans, they were quite isolated from this progress, until a few Europeans discovered their lands. You could blame the Arabs for that too, if there hadn’t been so much in-fighting then they may have held off the north European invaders indefinitely, but then I suppose Arabs might have discovered America first and your post would have been about Islam not getting anywhere, after continually invading northern Europe, that it would best be left to local thugs to keep order – siht ekil tsuj.
The reason we look at modern American history with regards the middle east is that it is still current, US policy is entrenched in the goings on of the last hundred years, and those are used as the basis of understanding , without denying the vast cultural differences that exist that established themselves long before. Current events have the greatest influence on Arab perceptions of the west also.
Islam isn’t the only religion with a history of massacre, and western political invention surpasses it copiously on many occasions.
Islam is the only religion where cruelty, enslaving, raping and murdering the unbeliever is a basic tenant to get to their “heaven” and to model their prophet and founder.
It will never change. It will never coexist. It will never evolve. It will never accept democracy, freedom, liberty or other western thought.
If you want peace in a muslim nation in the middle east, you need a brutal secular dictator(s).
Nor Saddam, nor Assad, nor Khadafi were under the thumb of THE dictatorship.
Secular is just a nice soft power term that says the door to EU is always open, on its terms, of course.
Christians and Jews are not seen as enemies in Islam. When muslims conquered Christian lands, people were not required to convert. They just had to pay a special tax. And Christians and Jews (along with other “people of the book”) will be able to go to heaven without converting.
Islam builds upon Jewish and Christian belief systems. Mohammed is simply the true messiah and his followers are to conquer the earth, in order to bring faith in God to all peoples. Christians and Jews already have that faith, so they are spared. Which is why you still have native Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian and other monotheist religions in place today in the Middle East.
This is what the Koran says. Though, like the Bible, people believe what they want and then interpret passages to reinforce that belief.
Jon,
Christians and Jews (if able to live) under muslims in power (not a secular dictator) will be treated as 3rd rate citizens under an apartheid system (called Dhimmitude).
Here are some of the rules from mohammed himself that happen in every country to some degree which non-muslims must live under muslims:
Distinctive dress was specified to identify a dhimmi that he would be unable to either mix with a muslim or even walk in a muslim area of a city.
Demeaning dress codes as not wearing shoes or sandals and not using certain colors,
Prohibited from working in many occupations to include government
How to pass a muslim on the street
No recourse if you are raped or beaten by a muslim
Christian and Jews are forbidden to build new churches/synagogues.
Christian and Jews are forbidden from attaining any position of authority over muslims.
Christians shall not teach Christianity to any muslim.
Christians and Jews shall not own or carry any weapons.
Christian and Jews will pay the Islamic tax (Jizya) of 50% of their income and once a year they will shave their heads and kneel before the muslims to present the Jizya.
And I could go on…
Tabari 7:97 – “Kill any Jew who falls under your power.”
Tabari 9:69 – “Killing Unbelievers is a small matter to us”
Ibn Ishaq: 992 – “Fight everyone in the way of Allah and kill those who disbelieve in Allah.”
Quran (3:151) – “Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority”
Quran (8:12) – “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them”
Quran (9:29) – “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day”
Quran (9:30) – “And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!”
Bukhari (52:177) – “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.”
And I really could go on.
2banana
I won’t even debate the topic with you as it is too simplistic to pick a few verses of Koran and point to hostility carried out by someone who happens to be Muslim. In the west we have some separation of church and state, yet Cristians still carry out atrocities, no matter if it is ordered by the state.
My point then?
Pot calls kettle black, and they won’t necessarily get along when they find out they are the same colour.
Here are a couple of random opposing links on the topic:
http://www.truthbeknown.com/victims.htm
http://www.mintpressnews.com/do-the-math-global-war-on-terror-has-killed-4-million-muslims-or-more/208225/
“To this, the PSR study adds at least 220,000 in Afghanistan and 80,000 in Pakistan, killed as the direct or indirect consequence of US-led war: a ‘conservative’ total of 1.3 million. The real figure could easily be ‘in excess of 2 million’.”
So, it would seem irrelevant to you as to WHO actually killed all of these people? The fact that probably the vast majority were killed by fellow Muslims….something we have seen continually regardless of US intervention or not has no bearing on the question of Muslim values?
I will not say America doe snot have any responsibility in this, but I think the real point was that many Muslims practice an ancient and uncivilized religion that glorifies and justifies mass killings of people for purely ideological reasons. We know for a fact that the ME wars have been explicitly monitored and our soldiers have been put under great restraint in rules of engagement, so I would contend that the bulk of our victims have been the result of direct military action and not some indiscriminate mass killings. War is hell but you cannot equate to two types of killing…which goes to the point.
We gave arms to Iraq, helped arm Iran, and they massacred each other. Previously the west armed itself, and massacred itself. Repeat and repeat.
You cannot have it both ways. Either western attitudes have been the same as Muslim ones, or some clever but differing ideologies have worked similarly behind both. The latter option is the most damming for western standing, as it implies the west, as a principle armer, is also behind Muslims killing Muslims.
You cannot stand up and say ‘Hey, we are different now, the last Christian war against Christians was decades ago ‘. A few decades is near nothing in the timeline I understand.
Historically, everyone was killing everyone, sometimes formally, sometimes indiscriminately, but always atrociously.
My point is that if Muslim nations are so destructive, wtf are we doing arming them?
Answers vary from geopolitics, oil, coldwar and so on.
US intervention has always been out of self interest.
Arab attitudes and loyalties do not always mix well with western ones, and vice versa, nothing new there at all.
Excellent article. The author is a true patriot to question his government as Thomas Jefferson would approve. Great comments as well.
The day after the inauguration, either Hillary or Trump will be ushered into a smoke-filled room. One of the seven men will flick his cigar ash and say roll trhe film.
They show the shot from the grassy knoll. The film stops and a voice asks the President, “Any questions?
Nice Bill Hicks quote! But to be precise, he says the camera shot is from a different angle than the Zapruder film. 😉
A truthful article from a US military person gives me great hope for the future and once again confirms my belief as a Canadian that my American brothers and sisters are not well represented by some of their elected leaders. Thank you for this, I have followed the middle east closely for 40 years and it is what I might have written with a lot more to be said about drone warfare.
Excellent post/summary. Thank you for taking the time to write this.
Where did you write as a columnist? I would like to read more of what you have written.
Would this be you? http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=la_B001KHTKNK_B001KHTKNK_sr?rh=i%3Abooks&field-author=Craig+J.+Cantoni&sort=relevance&ie=UTF8&qid=1464872811
American servicemen have died everywhere – Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Africa and, of course, America.
And almost all of it completely unnecessary.
Well written. I would have included reference to Brzezinski’s 1997 book The Grand Chessboard, which seems to serve as a blueprint for what America has been doing since 9/11, possibly going back to Clinton’s Bosnian fiasco. I also would have included the ‘update’ to Wolfowitz’s doctrine, the PNAC document Rebuilding America’s Defenses, written in September of 2000, which dreamed of a ‘Pearl Harbor Moment’ that would give the U.S. an excuse to leap into action.
You completely missed out about the maintenance of the Petrodollar,
“How victims of American invasion wanted to stop trading in dollars
This petrodollar system stood unchallenged until September of 2000 when former Iraqi Persistent Saddam Hussein announced his decision to switch Iraq’s oil sales off of the dollar to Euros. This was a direct attack on the dollar. To protect the supremacy of the dollar, the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. Once Iraqi oil fields were under U.S. control after the invasion, oil sales were immediately switched back to the dollar.”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-reason-russia-is-demonized-and-sanctioned-the-american-petrodollar/5402592?print=1
The idea that trading oil in Euros had anything to do with it is absurd. It would not have mattered then or now. I have refuted such ridiculousness many times.
https://mishtalk.com/2005/10/13/oil-priced-in-euros-would-it-matter/
Though I do not think that was the reason for the invasion , I feel certain that pricing and trading oil in dollars is a lot more relevant than it first appears . A simple example , imagine all oil contracts , futures, had to be written out in say Renminbi . The buyers will want to secure their trade at dollar value and hence there would be hedging on the Renminbi , in other words the Renminbi would take on a reference status . Maybe someone could argue that out for me , or disprove it even … in the meantime …
It must have been coincidence then that they were in the process of or had already turned away from the Dollar trade.
Tony. I consider that those shifts, which have occured in other states that were later targeted, are representative of a wider shift in the positioning of their relationships with the west. It could be considered defensive, or disengagement, or retaliatory even at a certain level.Therefore the coincidence does not make it the cause, but only indicative of a rejection or distancing from certain spheres of influence. That it is a clear manifestation of position does not make it the cause, the cause would be underlying agendas and arguments that we are not always privy to.
“Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”
The post script hasn’t been written yet.
He should have started with Perry’s neocon opening up of Tokyo in 1853, then moved to Teddy Roosevelt’s Span-Am war, then the Banana Republic wars after WWI then post WWII moving right into Iran and Guatemala overthrows through Vietnam up to today featuring close to 2 dozen invasion/coup’s. And he didn’t get the Wolfowitz credit right, that should be called the Cheney Doctrine. But if you really want to cap it all of Mish (instead of reprinting this misleading mish mash), you’ve got to start with Israel’s “Clean Break”, a follow up of Cheney’s Wolfowitz Doctrine with Leo Strauss student/adherent Richard Perleman, who then helped Bill Kristol and Bobbie Kagan (husband Victoria “Cookies” Nuland), carrying the Anglo-Zionist agenda of their fathers into the neocon inspired PNAC that took America on a final ride beginning with Bush lite and ending in the destruction of America, which is the only thing we’re waiting for at this point. It’s all in my latest book, “The Science of Liberty: American Reformation” at scienceofliberty.us in support of super pac electanewcongress.com.
Truthfully, the only answer is a reformation of America back into a State of Liberty and that’s why I wrote the book because, 1) because no one has written a serious examination of Liberty since John Stuart Mills “On Liberty” in 1859, and 2) there were a lot of things he missed.
I’ll be starting a regular broadcast called the Daily Lie of Omission soon in order to share. Cheers!
I am sure that many have their story related to these events, here is part of mine:
It must have been six months or so before Iraq invaded Kuwait. I was in a gap year, and though I didn’t live in the UK, for whatever turn of events I was visiting some old friends of family as a stepping stone into some work, that being of all places a gas mask factory just off the military base of Bordon. My first job, the manager seemed to think I was over qualified but let me through to the 4 day 12 hr shift routine, I came to understand why. Maybe I would have stayed longer there but Lloyds bank took my cheques yet would not let me draw from my account due to a delay in the guarantor’s signature…my first bank account. I had to survive by drinking as much free soup from the workplace dispenser and sneakily rationing off small amounts of food late at night from the kitchen of the rented accommodation I had. The owner of the house, who also lived there, didn’t seem to notice, but then my conversation with him never got further than that he worked at the cemetery.
Apart from learning how to make gas masks (cartridges) , I came away with two pieces of information ( no, I was in no way spying etc.). The first was that the gas spectrometer tests that verified if each cartridge worked were always manned by those who passed them the fastest… the most in other words. It was the best/easiest station of the circuit. I passed details of this to the Gulf Vet. association.
The second info was that they had an order on for, if I remember, 3 million cartridges, that had to be completed in months. The pace to finish the order was frantic.
I lasted several weeks there and left, took a half day to find out plucking turkeys didn’t suit me either, and was out of the country.
So a few months later I am sat with friends at Mesillah beach club in Kuwait… why the choppers and frigates? Saddam and Kuwait are arguing over borders and oil.
I won’t describe here how Kuwait was before and after, the many stories… a couple days later we were on a flight to Cyprus, then a few days later the friends I had left behind were happy hostages, or living in air ducts to avoid capture.
And that is how it happened. Just. Like. That.
I’m always impressed by the power and influence of Jewish intellectuals from the early 20th century have over modern America. Neoconservatism from Leo Strauss, which ultimately influenced Wolfowitz, Perle and Cheney. Libertarianism from Von Mises, Hayek, Friedman, and Rand. Even Freud and Edward Bernays established modern population control through mass marketing.
Heck, tons of American Christians are ready to run off and die for Israel. Mucho respect.
“Heck, tons of American Christians are ready to run off and die for Israel.”
Really – name some. I can’t think of ANY. But you know “tons.”
Now I can show tons of muslims who want to run off and die to kill infidels. 9/11 is just a small example. Happens every day around the world.
The koran promises virgins and little boys in a perverted heavenly brothel to those that die in jihad against the unbelievers.
What does a Christian get if they run off and die for Israel? Nothing in the Gospel about that.
Let’s see – There is the Golden Rule, Salvation, and those without sin to cast the first stone lessons…
But nothing about dying for Israel or porking virgins in heaven…
You know exactly the point of view Jon is describing. The difficulty is not in naming the volunteers, it is in proving that US military decision making has been influenced by Israeli lobby.
So just how dumb are the muslim jihadis? They are promised 47 or 77 or 100 virgins when they get to heaven after wasting their lives, but a virgin is only a virgin once. After a couple months of going through their virgins, what are they going to do for the rest of eternity? Obviously they are incapable of logical thinking.
Mish,Pretty good summary overall. Cantoni is far more awake regarding the history of the militaristic tentacles of the U.S. Empire than most flag-wrapped and dumbed-down Americans. Even though Cantoni had to hit the high points of a long and sordid history of the U.S. Empire’s Middle East adventures, he seems to have ignored a major point as to current cause-and-effect in the Middle East. As pertains to ISIS, there is considerable evidence that the U.S. has been funding and arming ISIS for quite some time now. But, in so doing, the Pentagram and the CIA are smart enough to play the “name game” for the consumption of the reality TV and sports-distracted American audience. We call the recipients of our fiat and military aid largesse “moderate freedom fighters” and give such other PR psy-ops monikers, like “Free Syrian Army”, or “FSA”. What freedom-loving American Neo-Con could argue with arming and funding such a patriotic organization in Syria? “One man’s ‘freedom fighter’ is another man’s ‘terrorist’.” The label chosen by the U.S. military-intelligence apparatus depends on which side we back in whatever war is in question. These same “moderate Muslim rebels” of the FSA, when interviewed, freely admit that they are allied with Al Qaida (aka the “Jabhat Al-Nusra Front”), our supposed eternal enemy in the Global War on Terror or GWOT and also ISIS as well. Essentially, we have “knowingly and willingly” armed Al Qaida and ISIS terrorist organizations, a very serious violation of federal law if any mere mortal in the U.S. dares to do the same. Unfortunately, “If you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.” ‘Vetted Moderate’ Free Syrian Army Commander Admits Alliance with ISIS, Confirms PJ Media Reporting | | | | | |
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| | | | ‘Vetted Moderate’ Free Syrian Army Commander Admits Alliance with I… As Congress rushes to throw even more money and weapons at our ‘vetted moderate’ Syrian allies in the ab… | |
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There have also been reports that Israel has provided medical treatment to “moderate Syrian rebels” (there’s the “name game” again) injured on the battlefield in Syria. “So what if several thousand Nusra Front and ISIS terrorists get treated as well? Is not, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’, the guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy?” Exclusive: Israel Is Tending to Wounded Syrian Rebels | | | | | |
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| | | | Exclusive: Israel Is Tending to Wounded Syrian Rebels Israel is quietly cultivating ties with moderate Syrian rebel groups operating along the country’s U.N.-moni… | |
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Vladimir Putin exposed the U.S. lie of trying to stop ISIS in Syria when he sent his very modest military expeditionary force into Syria in September 2015 and accomplished more in the first few weeks than the U.S. military had accomplished in the previous 15 months or so. Either the U.S. military is inept or Putin embarrassed us by exposing the fact that our planes had been “pounding sand” for 15 months or so. However, the U.S. military is a much more gracious military empire than others in history. We drop leaflets in the area of ISIS / terrorist-funding oil tanker convoys to warn them of impending air strikes so no nice terrorists get hurt. That rogue, Putin, fails to abide by such humanitarian military gestures that would make even Darth Vader’s eyes tear up. And military analysts seriously debate today the outcome of a NATO war with Russia? Unfortunately, the delusional, “exceptional Americans” would discover way too late in the game that our feminized, but politically-correct, military paper tiger is no match for the much deadlier and committed Russian military whose own national history has been forged in the fires of invasion, death, and destruction by foreign usurpers. The citizens of Russia haven’t forgotten the true hardship endured by their citizenry in WWII that would make a mockery of “The Greatest Generation” fairy tale conjured up by the CIA-owned media shill, Tom Brokaw.
From: MishTalk To: rppearson2000@yahoo.com Sent: Wednesday, June 1, 2016 11:30 PM Subject: [New post] How Americans Came to Die in the Middle East #yiv3736491985 a:hover {color:red;}#yiv3736491985 a {text-decoration:none;color:#0088cc;}#yiv3736491985 a.yiv3736491985primaryactionlink:link, #yiv3736491985 a.yiv3736491985primaryactionlink:visited {background-color:#2585B2;color:#fff;}#yiv3736491985 a.yiv3736491985primaryactionlink:hover, #yiv3736491985 a.yiv3736491985primaryactionlink:active {background-color:#11729E;color:#fff;}#yiv3736491985 WordPress.com | mishgea posted: “This is a guest post, sent to me on Tuesday, by reader Craig Cantoni, a former military officer whose father is in a veteran’s cemetery.Cantoni presents a historical picture on many levels as to what has happened and is still going on in the Middle Ea” | |
Mish,If my previous comment is published in any way, please do not use my last name and/or email address. Thanks,Ricky
From: MishTalk To: rppearson2000@yahoo.com Sent: Wednesday, June 1, 2016 11:30 PM Subject: [New post] How Americans Came to Die in the Middle East #yiv3736491985 a:hover {color:red;}#yiv3736491985 a {text-decoration:none;color:#0088cc;}#yiv3736491985 a.yiv3736491985primaryactionlink:link, #yiv3736491985 a.yiv3736491985primaryactionlink:visited {background-color:#2585B2;color:#fff;}#yiv3736491985 a.yiv3736491985primaryactionlink:hover, #yiv3736491985 a.yiv3736491985primaryactionlink:active {background-color:#11729E;color:#fff;}#yiv3736491985 WordPress.com | mishgea posted: “This is a guest post, sent to me on Tuesday, by reader Craig Cantoni, a former military officer whose father is in a veteran’s cemetery.Cantoni presents a historical picture on many levels as to what has happened and is still going on in the Middle Ea” | |
The global conventional crude reserves have been depleted to the rate of 87 percent today. The only economically viable oil wells left today are located in the Middle East.
Our civilization is based on oil. Without crude our civilization will disappear too.
Heavy oil and unconventional oil will never be economically viable to sustain our economies.
All western powers are becoming more and more militarily involved in the Middle East today.
Great article and the comments today are well thought out and informative. The Middle East is al about control of resources. Afghanistan for instance, although a stark location on the planet, has the largest deposits on lithium on the planet. Lithium is rare in most places.
Oil is where it is at as well. I served in Iraq and despise having being sent over there to fight. My son served three tours there and he too was sick of it. I know some of you do not like people that served and that is ok. We were disliked by the same people we were supposedly there to defend. I love the USA but we need to get out of foreign conflicts and bring our young men and women home.
I did indeed meet some great Muslims and some of my troops were Muslim and fought along side of us. They got to take their trip to Mecca as well. But most hated us there. One commenter made a good point. The dictators should have been left in place to maintain the peace. This area of the world along with Africa is tribal and requires strong leadership. Just not strong leaders the USA, Europe and Great Britain topples and later installs. Africa and the Middle East have fought wars amongst themselves for over a 1000 years and we will not change it.
My take Mish is the USA along with Europe want control of the resources in these regions of the new Silk Road. Another thought (puts on Tin foil hat) governments want war to help their economies otherwise we would be in a huge mess at home.
I am ashamed at what we are now doing in the world.
Anyone who pre-judges another for serving, or having served, in the military, has it wrong.
https://lisahavennews.net/2016/06/02/imminent-disaster-ahead-wait-until-you-see-what-20-world-leaders-have-planned-whats-about-to-be-birthed-could-usher-in-hell-on-earth-literally/
Beautiful essay, thank you for sharing.
This is what the nazi-vatican-bush-narco-cartel thinks of the United States Armed Forces . . . “In Haig’s presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as “dumb, stupid animals to be used” as pawns for foreign policy. “
EXCELLENT, spot-on article, thank you!
I have no sympathy whatsoever for the parasitic tax-eating murderers who slaughter the innocent at the behest of the political filth.
Reblogged this on Today,s Thought.
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Got all the bases covered. Bravo