Or, America, the most inept 'superpower' in world history
Here's a couple of things you won't find on Fox or CNN: (Link) and (Link)
Why are we fighting a war on two fronts at once, in Iraq and Afghanistan (ask the Germans about that - they tried it twice in the last century and failed miserably and catastrophically each time), and at the same time allowing Israel to stir up a hornet's nest of rage and racial hatred in a region of vital interest to us?
I believe some comedian or other recently pointed out that America has poured millions if not billions of dollars worth of ordinance over Afghanistan - and caused less than a hundred dollars worth of damage to that god-forsaken misbegotten midden of a nation. Why? Because there's nothing there. What passed for their 'cities' were already bombed-out ruins as a consequence of the resistance to the Soviet occupation. All that's left are rocks, sand, goats and heroin.
The Pathan/Pashtun peoples of the region have been successfully slaughtering Western armies for centuries (they like their flyspeck dunghill of a country, god only knows why, and want no one else there - unless it's to buy heroin), and show absolutely no sign of discontinuing that habit. The Taliban and their one-eyed Mullah Omar have, apparently, patched up their doctrinal differences with the Jaysh Muhammad and are once more happily and successfully killing Westerners and attacking military convoys - while all the time enhancing and upgrading the production of heroin, the sale of which brings in more than enough (many times more than enough) money to keep them supplied in black turbans and kalashnikovs, along with sophistated devices that permit the explosion of bombs from a distance.
The USA is making a truly impressive fist of its commitment to bringing peace around the world through superior firepower - busy losing not one, not two, but three wars at once - Afghanistan, Iraq, and the general propaganda front of the 'War on Terror'. There is nothing in Afghanistan for Americans except goat-burgers and heroin - and the possibility of gaining a reputation as the stupidest and most ineffective military 'superpower' in the history of the world.
It's not the men and women fighting on the ground who are at fault, nor their military commanders. Once more, as it was in Europe during the 1914-1918 war, it's a case of Lions being led by Donkeys. It's the fault of politicians who think that missiles and bombs equate to a big dick and that their dicks have to be seen to be absolutely the biggest DICKS of all. Politicians of all stamps and breeds, whose egos are rapacious pits into which the bodies of the dead are poured endlessly. I'm astonished that creatures such as Bush and Blair, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice, don't leave bloody footprints wherever they walk, so saturated in death are they.
Actually, it's not the numbers of the dead which revolt me (which, historically speaking, are quite small). It's the pointlessness of such deaths. That they have achieved nothing at all - at least, not in terms of the way these various conflicts were originally framed, in terms of what their political initiators said they wanted to do.
Far from Iraq being a beacon of peaceful, liberal, democratic capitalism, a reliable client and a source of vital resources - it's a slaughterhouse of sectarian and regionally-inspired violence heading almost certainly for division along regional lines and a cycle of internecine religious and ethnic conflict that will help destabilise the region for decades: when it isn't playing directly into the hands of Iran.
So Saddam Hussein was toppled. And? Instead of one brutal but orderly dictatorship that kept the lights on, the water running, and the hospitals working (working as in not being heaps of rubble, as in being able to attend to medical need) we now have dozens of ethnic enclaves, collapsed infrastructure, death squads and suicide bombers walking the streets and killing by day and night.
Instead of the rape and torture rooms of Uday and Qusay, we have collections of headless bodies turning up daily, we have bodies turning up by the dozen, all bearing signs of heinous torture. (Link) NB: Follow all the links here for a comprehensive review of sectarian, regional, religious and political conflict in present-day Iraq.
America has done an outstanding job of bringing democracy to Iraq through superior firepower - and through the most intransigent, bloody-minded, obtuse political incomptence I've ever seen; or heard described, fatuously, as military and political strategy.
And now, just when the overwhelming evidence of complete and utter failure in these military adventures ought to be at its most convincing, just when it ought to be most apparent how vital to our interests is peace in that region and access to oil, what do we do?
We bolster and support Israel in its war with Hezbullah. I don't care how many Isreli soldiers they took, or how many katyushas Hezbollah send to Haifa and beyond; I don't care how right or legitimate is the Iraeli response, nor how illegitimate the actions of Hezbollah. Let them squabble over their dunghill nations all they want - so long as we have what we need. Let them slaughter each other to their hearts' content, by the million if need be, so long as the oil flows and we can do business there.
And in case any of you reading this think my position to be inconsistent with other comments I've made elsewhere about natural justice - I have my realpolitik head on right now - mostly because I'm all Lebanoned out and would really rather like to hear about some other catastrophe elsewhere in the world.
There's only so many tearful blood-stained children I can look at in one day without starting to yawn. Dear me. Am I not just plain unpleasant? You betcha.
So what's to be done? The first thing to do is decide on priorities. What's more important, attempting to crush Afghani resistance (which can't and won't be done) for no gain - or shutting down one front of a two-front war that we're losing hand over fist and re-deploying to Iraq where there's still some slender chance of snatching something to our benefit? I say redeploy. Let the Taliban have Afghanistan. America isn't the first nation to come to grief there. They mauled the British. They mauled the Russians. And now they're mauling us. They'll continue to export their Jihadi violence and we'll continue to suffer from it. But that's just a fact of life we'll have to get used to. Just as we'll have to learn to excel in intelligence penetration and constant vigilance.
What next? Come to an agreement with the two real powers of the Middle East, Tehran and Damascus. What do we want? To feel like we're good guys in White Hats? Or to do business and keep the oil flowing? Do a realistic deal over Tehran's nuclear ambitions; supply them with all the technology they need for a civil nuclear infrastructure, engage in trade and diplomacy; work with the youth of Iran who want peace, modernisation and their own definition of liberty; encourage and sustain a new generation of political realists who will have both regional clout enough, and economic and political reason enough, to restrain the worst excesses of their client terror-networks.
And finally, deal with Israel simply as one more client state; an unruly, bellicose and beligerent client at that. Compel Israel to comply with the many UN resolutions its currently in breach of, compel it to withdraw to its pre-1967 borders, and compel it to deal honestly with the Palestinians. It would be easy enough: withdraw all military, economic, and political support; ensure the successful passage of a motion of censure in the Security Council; and if necessary level a couple of Israeli cities here and there.
In other words, do whatever it takes to make them understand their real place in the world - which is as the biggest dog on the block owned by the baddest bastard in town - us.
If a skinny little Englishman sat in the ghetto of the South Side of Richmond VA, USA, can see these things why can't the likes of the rest of you? And why aren't you demanding that the people you elect pull their thumbs from their asses and do something to defend the real interests of your children and grand-children?
F*ck the Arabs. F*ck the Jews. It's time something was done in the interests of America and her people, not the rabid mongrels currently running amok in the Middle East.