The Pentagon and the Generals Wanted This Disastrous War

MISES WIRE ^ | 08/17/2021 | Ryan McMaken

[Grandpa Drudge]

It's doesn’t take an immense amount of imagination to recall the images of those who were desperate to escape from the US embassy in Saigon.

Blame the Generals and the Pentagon

So now we reach the stage of figuring out who is to blame for this total strategic failure in Afghanistan.

Some politicians will try and use the US regime’s failure in Afghanistan to score points against the Biden administration. We already see it with some Republicans who still haven't figured out that the American public long ago stopped caring about the war.

It’s easy to see the partisan reasons for this, but if we want to honestly focus on who’s to blame for the utter waste of time and resources that was the war in Afghanistan, we have to look far beyond just a handful of civilian politicians.

Yes, much of the blame should go to the civilian bureaucrats, because they share an immense amount of the blame in bringing about this strategic blunder. George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Madeleine Albright are just a few of the politicos who encouraged the continuation of this lost war.

But the fact is the civilian war architects were encouraged and enabled every step of the way by Pentagon bureaucrats (i.e., the generals), who were only more than happy to have an excuse to pad their budgets and increase their relevance on Capitol Hill. As Ron Paul put it this week:

[Grandpa Drudge]

I think this is an important article. This is a link for the full article

https://mises.org/wire/pentagon-and-generals-wanted-disastrous-war

My take: The Military/Industrial Complex (DEEP STATE) is probably overjoyed at this opportunity to blame President Biden for this fiasco in Afghanistan!

Speculation: Maybe this is the real reason for the DEEP STATE manipulation of the Democrat primary selection and election of Biden / Harris in 2020. Just sayin'...

[Bayard]

Its extremely dangerous and stupid if they did so thinking the outcome benefits the nation in any way. Putting Biden in the White House was a hate America act.

[ClearCase_guy]

As the article basically points out, bureaucrats get bigger budgets when they fail. The failure is rewarded. So that they can do better “next time”.

Your local school system operates in a similar way — if the schools are top-notch, will voters approve a tax increase to make the schools better? Probably not. Why bother? The schools are top-notch already.

If your schools are awful, full of violence, with graduating kids being unable to read, write or do simple math, will voters approve a tax increase to make schools better? They sure will! Gotta fix those schools! This is why most government schools are bad — they get rewarded when they fail.

And the Pentagon tends to get more money when our generals hand us a humiliating defeat.

[moovova]

Here's a link to the WaPo "Afghanistan Papers" article referred to in your posted article.

Thanks for posting this.

It's just sickening.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

[Leaning Right]

Don’t forget promotions. Whenever there’s a major war, generals get more responsibility and more stars. In peacetime things kinda stagnate. We can’t have that!

And that’s what really bothered George Armstrong Custer. During the Civil War he was a major general. But after the war he reverted back to being a mere lieutenant colonel. Can’t have that! So off to the Little Big Horn for fame and glory.

[pghbjugop]

You are exactly right. When schools / government fails, that is the basis to need, request more money. When a company is failing they are less able to borrow money and get investors. They go to politicians and say look how we suck Sinbad we need more money to fix the problem. The solution is always more money. It should be, you clean up your act or we give you less $. I’ve been saying for decades, government rewards failure.

[Envisioning]

Money talks and there is a lot of money to be made……

[pepsi_junkie]

We know that Mark Milley was an insubordinate SOB who referred to the Commander in Chief as Hitler to junior staff people and certainly slow rolled his orders. When a General decides that HE makes policy it's bad for the republic, so he should have gone the minute that stuff came out. But he was an SJW hero so he got to stay.

I suspect he continued to operate the same way with Biden, like he was in charge, and he didn't want to be out of Afghanistan so he slow rolled any prep work on the assumption that he could run out the clock on the deadlines and find a way to keep troops there indefinitely because he threw a spanner into the works of the withdrawl. He did that sort of thing with Trump, why not assume he thought he was king even under Biden? Instead the Taliban decided not to play along with his political games and he lost the war and created an epic disaster.

One good thing: Even if he doesn't get fired he probably isn't going to get to cash in with a big paying lobbying job after this.

[glimmerman70]

And we and everybody sure is talking about this instead of the steal and the audits. Anything to distract.

[Irenic]

Yes it is!

[Vendome]

[euram]

Thoroughly Modern Milley and his assorted 0bama ass-kissing henchmen should all be stripped of their ranks and pensions.

[bitt]

p

[Jane Long]

Lock her up!