Bush Calls on France for Help -
War Without End -
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS /
"We sup****t 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 sup****t the troops. War funding
sup****ts 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 sup****ts
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
sup****t 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 "sup****t" them by keeping them
in Iraq and Afghanistan. What all those ribbon decals on the back of
SUVs, which proclaim "sup****t the troops," really mean is sup****t
Bush's wars of aggression against Muslims.
According to the Wa****ngton 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 *****sment 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
****'ites, who are allied with Iran, in place as the new rulers of
Iraq. So far the Iraqi ****'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 ****'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 re****ted for the McClatchy newspapers that "Pakistan is now
the central front in America's war on terror." On February 9, the
Wa****ngton Post re****ted: "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 re****ters 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 sup****t 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 s****t 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 sup****ters 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?
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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. He can be reached at:
PaulCraigRoberts@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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