Tag: The Forever War

What Could Go Wrong

Let’s play the game of creating a hypothetical situation. Assume that two countries in close proximity to one another are having a strong disagreement. One of these countries is the source for most of your goods and the other is a country that hosts one of your foreign military bases. What would be the best course of action for your country? Would you try to stay out of it and let the two countries duke it out or would you send your warships into the fray? If you answers the latter you may be ready for a career in the United States war department:

China has confirmed that one of its warships — reportedly the newly deployed aircraft carrier Liaoning — had an “encounter” with a U.S. guided missile cruiser in the South China Sea earlier this month.

The incident, in which American officials say the USS Cowpens was forced to take evasive action to avoid a collision, was first revealed by Washington last week. China’s state media has said it was Liaoning involved in the incident, but Beijing’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday would only say that the U.S. vessel had been “tailing and harassing” one of its warships while it was engaged in drills. It did not say which of its warships was involved.

What could possible go wrong with involving ourselves in this dispute between China and Japan? Especially when you consider there is really not reason for the United States to be in that region other than to expand its empire. The thing that worries me is incidents of harassment turning into incidents of combat. Warring with China is a recipe for failure considering the economy power it wields.

They Hate Us for Our Freedom

Remember the propaganda released shortly after 9/11? We were told that the terrorists attacked us because they hated us for our freedom. It was such bullshit that I was surprised that so many people lapped it up. But they didn’t hate us for our freedoms then and they don’t hate us for our freedoms now. They hate us because of shit like this:

(Reuters) – Fifteen people on their way to a wedding in Yemen were killed in an air strike after their party was mistaken for an al Qaeda convoy, local security officials said on Thursday.

The officials did not identify the plane in the strike in central al-Bayda province, but tribal and local media sources said that it was a drone.

“An air strike missed its target and hit a wedding car convoy, ten people were killed immediately and another five who were injured died after being admitted to the hospital,” one security official said.

Five more people were injured, the officials said.

European countries and the United States have been fucking over the Middle East for over a ages. It’s pretty easy for anybody with a pair of eyes and a few neurons to see why so many people in the Middle East hate the United States. Bombing operations like this will only make the situation worse.

The Psychopaths in Charge

Unlike many gun owners the so-called liberals in Washington DC aren’t the politicians that truly scare. The really frightening politicians are the war mongers. Their policies involve sending men and woman form this country overseas to kill men and women in foreign lands. Obviously the men and women of the foreign lands don’t take kindly to invasion so they fight back and put the men and women of this country in harm’s way. War mongers make this Ouroboros of death even worse by refusing to go overseas and suffer the same danger as the people they send. Once in a while a war monger even goes the extra mile and advocates the destruction of entire swaths of populated land:

But if push came to shove and US officials deemed strikes necessary, Hunter turned hawkish.

He said any American strike would be a “massive aerial bombing campaign,” adding that such a mission should not feature any “boots on ground.” Then, Hunter said the US should use its “tactical nuclear weapons” on Iranian targets.

How does threatening a nuclear strike help the situation? If anything such a threat will make Iran want its own nuclear weapons even more. After all, no nuclear armed country has suffered an invasion or a nuclear strike. When one nation begins to threaten another the latter country will want nuclear weapons to discourage the former. I think it would be a requirement of anybody entering public officer to watch several hours of footage of the aftermath of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After that any representative who throws around the idea of nuking a foreign country can be dismissed as a true psychopath.

The United States Government Moves to Kill More People with Drones

Apparently not enough people were being murdered in the Middle East by America’s fleet of remotely controlled bomb droppers. The Pentagon has loosened restrictions in regards to avoiding civilian casualties when using drones to bomb the shit out of somebody:

The Pentagon has loosened its guidelines on avoiding civilian casualties during drone strikes, modifying instructions from requiring military personnel to “ensure” civilians are not targeted to encouraging service members to “avoid targeting” civilians.

In addition, instructions now tell commanders that collateral damage “must not be excessive” in relation to mission goals, according to Public Intelligence, a nonprofit research group that analyzed the military’s directives on drone strikes.

I’m sure the people in the Middle East will finally understand how hard the United States is working to bring them freedom and democracy.

You Know the War on Terror is Lost When the Founder of Blackwater Starts Criticizing It

How can you tell when the War on Terror has been lost? When the founder of Blackwater Xe ACADEMI begins criticizing it:

Erik Prince is not the kind of man one expects to make the case for slashing U.S. intelligence and military budgets. After 9-11, his company, Blackwater, expanded exponentially, winning contracts to protect diplomats and politicians in Iraq and to train and work with CIA paramilitary teams hunting terrorists.

In an interview Monday, Prince said the national security state he once served has grown too large.

“America is way too quick to trade freedom for the illusion of security,” he told The Daily Beast. “Whether it’s allowing the NSA to go way too far in what it intercepts of our personal data, to our government monitoring of everything domestically and spending way more than we should. I don’t know if I want to live in a country where lone wolf and random terror attacks are impossible ‘cause that country would look more like North Korea than America.”

Even the people who made themselves wealthy off of the War on Terror can’t continue to promote it. Of course the state will continue to wage its war because that’s all it knows how to do. After all, the War on Terror was never about fighting terrorists, it was about expropriating wealth from foreign nations.

Iraqis are Human Too

Even though this is an Onion article I swear many people would be floored to discover this fact:

CHAPEL HILL, NC—A field study released Monday by the University of North Carolina School of Public Health suggests that Iraqi citizens experience sadness and a sense of loss when relatives, spouses, and even friends perish, emotions that have until recently been identified almost exclusively with Westerners.

“We were struck by how an Iraqi reacts to the sight of the bloody or decapitated corpse of a family member in a not unlike an American, or at the very least a Canadian, would,” said Dr. Jonathan Pryztal, chief author of the study. “In addition to the rage, bloodlust, and hatred we already know to dominate the Iraqi emotional spectrum, it appears that they may have some capacity, however limited, for sadness.”

Something that is often forgotten in war is that both sides are human. Separated by the Iraqi invasion we only get to see one side of the story. It’s easy to boast about the greatness of the United States when we’re not witnessing the torn families left in its wake. The next time you’re championing the United States invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan stop and consider the fact that the United States isn’t the only side losing people. Then consider what the families of the Iraqis and Afghans think when one of their sons is killed by the invading American army. Does it really make sense to put American lives in the Middle East if it only breeds hatred by giving families a reason to hate the United States?

Saving Face

It’s a miracle! Mr. Obama has seen the light and is now considering delaying the start of the United States-Syria War:

US President Barack Obama has said he will put plans for a US military strike against Syria on hold if the country agrees to place its chemical weapons stockpile under international control.

I’m sure his decision was influenced by what Syria proposes to do with its chemical weapons. The fact Russia has moved its fleet into the area, every other nation in the world (with the exception of France, who used to claim Syria as a colony) opposes a war between the United States and Syria, and Congress is unwilling to state its willingness to enter another war almost certainly had no influence on Mr. Obama’s statement.

Let’s face it, Obama is trying to save face. He was demanding war with Syria and everybody else opposed him. If he feels he can get away with ordering an action against Syria he will almost certainly claim that the Syrian regime failed to put its chemical weapons under international control. If he doesn’t feel as though he can get away with starting another Middle Eastern war he will claim that the Syrian regime did put its chemical weapons under international control. Either way, he has an out and that’s what he’s striving for. The one thing he doesn’t want to do is look weak. War mongers never want to look weak.

As a side note, watch many of the people who were opposing the war change their opinion. I believe many people in the opposition were only opposing the war because Obama supported it. If he now ceases beating the war drum those people will quickly pick up the drumsticks and continue beating the drum. American politics is seldom about principle and often about opposing what the other side wants.

Taking Bets

The Committee on Foreign Relations voted to enter the United States into another Middle Eastern war. Syria will become the next Iraq and Afghanistan as the military first move in with cruise missiles and later decided to “stabilize” the region by sending young men and women to die in yet another desert country. The Senate is expected to vote on the matter next week:

A US Senate panel has approved the use of military force in Syria, in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack.

By 10-7, the Committee on Foreign Relations moved the measure to a full Senate vote, expected next week.

Who wants to bet that the Senate will choose Wednesday, 9/11, to vote on the matter? I think it’s a pretty good possibility.

Middle Eastern Relations

The United Kingdom may have chickened out but our good allies al-Qaeda and France still have our backs when we decide to bomb the Syrian government back to an agrarian society! One may wonder why we want to involve ourselves further in the Middle East. Isn’t that region a kettle of bad international relationships ready to boil over? My friends, I am here to tell you that it is not. In fact understanding Middle Eastern relationships is so easy one need only look at this chart, which was created by an Egyptian blogger called The Big Pharaoh:

See, isn’t that simple? Who wouldn’t want to involve themselves with that mess? Hell, this is easier than involving one’s self with a particularly nasty love triangle. I’m sure no bad consequences would arise from invading yet another Middle Eastern country.

Bloodletting

Anarchists understand that the state is behind the times. When it comes to medical science the United States is practically in the medieval period. Upon creating or hearing news that the Syrian regime may have used chemical weapons the United States diagnosed the country with a severe case of violence. Instead of applying modern medical techniques, the United States opted for an ancient medical procedure known as bloodletting. In the eyes of American politicians the disease of violence in Syria can be cured if enough blood is removed from the country. In lieu of leeches the United States plans to use cruise missiles. My only hope is that the patient recovers before they bleed out.