Posted on 11/03/2021 2:59:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
We're out of Afghanistan. Good. We should have gotten out before.
Our involvement there was America's longest war, longer than the Civil War, World War I and World War II combined. We accomplished little good and plenty of bad. Tens of thousands killed. A trillion dollars spent.
Now the Taliban wear American uniforms and fly American planes.
Hawks say, "If we just stayed a little longer ... "
It's not true.
Yes, there had been a drop in violence in Afghanistan. But that did not mean we were winning. The Taliban were just waiting because former President Donald Trump announced we were going to leave.
Now what?
Will we continue to try to police the world?
Probably.
Washington defines U.S. national interests so broadly, says the Cato Institute's John Glaser, "that virtually no region of the world (is) considered nonvital."
This grandiosity started after WWII.
"No longer would we canonize George Washington's warning against entangling alliances," writes Glaser. "Or extol the counsel of John Quincy Adams that America 'goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.'"
Now we repeatedly go abroad, searching for monsters.
Many Americans believe the military and our use of military force shrank after WWII and after the Soviet Union collapsed. But it's not true either
"The United States has engaged in more military interventions in the past 30 years than it had in the preceding 190 years altogether," Glaser points out.
We post soldiers all over the world: 50,000 in Japan; 35,000 in Germany; 26,000 in South Korea. Why? Is it America's job to protect South Korea from North Korea? Taiwan from China? Israel from Iran?
We spend more on defense than the next 10 countries combined.
We can't afford to keep doing that.
We can't afford to keep funding defense contractors' cost overruns.
In my new video, Cato defense analyst Eric Gomez explains why Congress never does anything about that.
"A lot of members of Congress don't want it fixed," he says.
Defense contractors cleverly produce weapons in different states. Lockheed Martin boasts that F-35 parts are made in 48 states.
"If you're a member of Congress," says Gomez, "they're spending that money in your district ... You don't want that taken away from you."
An earlier draft of President Dwight Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex" speech called it the "military-industrial- congressional complex."
In Afghanistan, America spent $43 million to build a gas station (normal ones cost $500,000). Why? Some central planner decided this gas station should dispense natural gas, even though almost no cars can use it.
At least in Afghanistan our government did try to limit American involvement. Instead of having U.S. soldiers fight ... forever, America would train and equip Afghans so they could defend themselves.
But that didn't work either.
The U.S. spent $200 million trying to teach Afghan soldiers to read. Five years later, half still couldn't read.
The problem, says Gomez, is that American officials don't "have any clear sense of where things are going to go, what our objective is."
"We have an objective," I push back. "Make the world safe for democracy."
"In Afghanistan, we had objectives of making it safe for democracy," says Gomez. "We had objectives of turning Iraq from Saddam Hussein into a democratic and rich society. The record has not been very good."
No.
Now the military budget exceeds $700 billion, and the Defense Department says it will spend more money fighting climate change because the "climate crisis" is an "existential" threat.
Give me a break.
Spending patterns are driven by inertia. Year after year, they give about the same share of money to the Army, Navy and Air Force, even though today's threats from places like China mean the Navy and Air Force are much more important.
Politicians and the Pentagon need to make some choices. What exactly is the military's mission?
If America hopes to be both safe and prosperous, the military should focus on defending America itself.
When you give your enemies your best equipment...............
We did not try to police Aghanistan. Thanks to Bush, we tried to nation build by bringing an 8th century shit hole into the 21st century by throwing money at it and American lives.
You can bet this is the not so new norm.
The Navy is fine so give them the money. 1,000 ships would be great.
I’d be happy with just freezing spending increasing for the military. I don’t see the government ever cutting spending.
That is your opinion to which you are entitled to, and to which I disagree. Now let it go at that
They won’t. You can count on it.
,*** The Navy is fine so give them the money. 1,000 ships would be great. ***
I think there is some interesting news out of Iran today involving a hijacked oil tanker and the US.
“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.”
--James Madison
“A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny; and how are you to punish them? Will you order them to be punished? Who shall obey these orders? Will your mace-bearer be a match for a disciplined regiment?”
--Patrick Henry
Commonwealth of Virginia in 1788: “… that standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power.”
Pennsylvania Convention: “… as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military shall be kept under strict subordination to and be governed by the civil power.”
It’s about time we get some Pentagon bashing from the Right. That lair of DC swamp rats and vipers is not our friend!
One of my pet peeves from “our” side is when some quixotic “patriot” says every young man/young person should “have” to serve two years in the military.
Do such well meaning but naive souls *seriously* think teens should be forced under the capricious whims of the black supremacists, communists, gangbangers, Middle East terrorists, radical feminists, and sexual deviants in the modern Pentagon’s cadre and officer corps?
Do the GOP’s remaining militarists not know about the administrations of both Bu$hes, the Boi in the Blue Dress, B. Hussein, and now Xiden filling the higher ranks in the U.S. armed forces with such “woke” human debris?
Actually, when you repeat the mistakes of Vietnam by giving your enemy untouchable sanctuary in Pakistan, where the real logistical, training and support structure of the Taliban was operating with impunity and the support of the Pakistani government. Much as we wouldn’t do a ground assault into North Vietnam, ( and we wouldn’t do airstrikes into Pakistan either) then the enemy will never be defeated. Just killing soldiers doesn’t win a war, destroying the enemy’s ability to wage war and preventing the leadership from reorganizing, either by occupation or devastation is what wins a war. Russia lost 10 million troops to death, capture , or incapacitation during 1941 and 1942. The Germans lost 1.2 million, But the Russians kept their industry and leadership intact and went on to steamroll over the Germans. We didn’t steamroll the Taliban.
It was all bullcrap, as Bush tried to fight on the cheap, changed the tune to "nation building" after the WMD flop, destroyed peer competitor armor and artillery units by turning them into light infantry, failed to fund any replacements for worn out naval vessels, and exhausted remaining stockpiles of Cold War era weaponry.
He left the US far more exposed and the US military in far worse shape and engaged in expensive, impossible missions without any priority given to US interests. He also left the military with an expanded JAG corps acting like zampolits to enforce wokeness and made the military fight with ludicrously restrictive ROE to curry favor with leftists at home and the America hating "international community".
Bush failed his oath of office by refusing to fight enemies both at home and abroad, and set the stage for a vastly weaker military and the ascendancy of the Kenyan Communist infiltrator.
Unfortunately I know you’re right
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