At this point in time, after 30 years of conservative corporatist rule — let's face it, Clinton and Obama are as corporatist as Reagan and the Bushes — something has broken in America.
America is a lie wrapped in a delusion inside a swindle.
Witness Obama's “the war is over” speech. According to him, all “combat troops” have left Iraq. The 50,000 troops still in Iraq are there only to support Iraqi forces. This is semantics. If the Iraqis get in a fight with insurgents, Americans will be right there, supporting them. How do you support? You fight, for chrissake.
That's lie number one.
Lie number two: “At every turn, America’s men and women in uniform have served with courage and resolve.”
What bullshit. It's because our military kicked down doors in the middle of the night and terrorized the citizenry, that the Sunnis revolted and a civil war broke out. Yeah, that takes a lot of courage and resolve, to terrorize Iraqi families — women and children — at three o'clock in the morning. Our troops fucked up from start to finish, because George W. Bush fucked up from start to finish. This biggest asshole of all Presidents did not even get what he wanted. He did not even succeed in why he started the war in the first place: for the Iraqis to give their oil contracts exclusively to US oil companies instead of to the Russian and French companies with whom Saddam cut oil deals. The Russians have still got their oil deals, and of course the Chinese have joined them.
Obama said: “Yet no one could doubt President Bush's support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security.” Sure, no one could doubt President Bush's support for our oil companies, or his love of Texas oil men and commitment to their oil profits.
Now the neocons want Obama to thank them for the fact that the surge worked. The surge did not work. What worked was that Muqtada al-Sadr decided to take his Mahdi Army out of the fight (for now) and that the Sunni leaders got fed up with the brutal terrorist actions of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and that General Petraeus bought off the Sunni leaders with hard cash. He paid them to fight Al Qaeda instead of us.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Trisha
This article sounds completely narcissistic and just pathetic. The negativity towards the military and government in this is just embarrassing and infuriating- if that combination even makes sense. I think the author should just shut up and keep his opinion to himself.
2 - Nat Woods
Adam, thanks for this terrific article. You're right. Our troops fucked up from start to finish. By acting like thugs, they ignited an insurgency. As you say, they failed every test and defended us against a nonexistent threat. "Our troops fought for nothing," you write, "and died in vain."
Unlike you, however, Barack Obama cannot say those words. For all the wrongheaded wars we've gotten into since 1776, no president has ever been able to tell Americans, "Our troops fought for nothing and died in vain." For him to have said so in his August 31 speech would've meant political suicide. He'd have been impeached the next day.
So to call Obama a liar may be over the top. He's a politician, Adam. They all lie. It's part of their job description. But realistically, how could he have told the truth on nationwide TV about what we did in Iraq and are still doing in Afghanistan? He can't look the American people in the eye and tell us, "Your sons and daughters are murderers. Thanks for letting them join the military. And for those killed in action, rest assured. My letter of condolence is in the mail."
Not everybody has the freedom to be as cruel as you, Adam.
3 - Ruvy
This article was written by an Obama supporter. I wonder what an anti-Obama article would look like?
4 - jeannie danna
Just like yours, Ruvy...
:D lol Don't get mad at me for joking with you, OK? I just couldn't resist!.
5 - jeannie danna
No more blood for oil!
It's about time that someone (besides me) tries to reveal the true nature of our *war on terror*.
We have been sold all of these lies by a group of *sleazy* advertisers working for the war profiteers.
YES, Saddam was undercutting the world market by selling his country's oil, independently of OPEC and the US.
Yes, they really could give a flying F about the men, women, and children of these war torn nations.
Yes, the soldiers are now sitting ducks, once again. I don't agree with the author here, because these are not *combat troops* that are being left behind; they are permanent markers.
6 - jeannie danna
Nat,
I saw your *agenda* and you need to stop trying to demonize the soldiers. They are our children and many joined for economic reasons, not out of some sick blood lust.
OK, Bradley Manning Support Group?
7 - Ruvy
:D lol Don't get mad at me for joking with you, OK? I just couldn't resist!.
Why should I get mad a someone in upstate New York for joking around?
8 - roger nowosielski
What part of the article do you disagree with, Jeannie? Just curious.
9 - Ruvy
I don't like how your country is using soldiers and making policy in Afghanistan or Pakistan, Jeannie. In fact, it stinks. But this is not a slam on the soldiers, but the fools at the top. You're a veteran. you get what I'm saying.
10 - Baronius
IF you believe that the war was about oil, then it was a failure. Of course there was no evidence that it was about oil in the first place, and the oil explanation never really made sense anyway.
IF you believe that the war was about overthrowing Saddam, then it was a success.
IF you believe that the war was about creating a stable democracy in the Gulf region, here's hoping that it worked.
11 - jeannie danna
I don't disagree with this article, Roger
I just say it's not the soldiers making the policies and decisions.
12 - jeannie danna
Ruvy,
I don't like it either. So, my friend, THIS is the first article that we both agree with.
:D Congratulations to both of us!
13 - jeannie danna
Yes, the soldiers are now sitting ducks, once again. I disagree with the author here, because these are not *combat troops* that are being left behind; they are permanent markers.
Sorry for the confusing word.
14 - jeannie danna
Baronius,
You just said it all. We have all been led by the noses to believe.
How about the truth?
15 - handyguy
What a horrendous waste. The war, yes, but also this terrible article, a waste of obvious writing talent. All anger, no reasoning. All heat, no light.
We kept troops in Germany and Korea too, without them being drawn back into combat. The 50,000 are scheduled to be drawn down much, much further in the next 12-15 months.
Because Obama moves and speaks moderately and cautiously, especially in foreign policy, he will never, ever satisfy you. There is a vast difference between not saying what you want to hear and "lying."
And your misrepresentation of the financial crisis is so extreme as to be immoral. Your anger is doing your thinking for you, with disastrous results.
16 - Baronius
Handy, I'm not saying this to goad you or anything, but I would have thought you agreed with Adam's assessment of Wall Street.
17 - handyguy
Nope. I find the liberal populist view that Wall St banks are storybook villains, and that they "own" the Obama administration, as phony and unconvincing as the right's various narratives.
And just this week, the NY Times ran a story about several Wall St and hedge-fund fat cats who supported Obama in 2008, turning on him in recent weeks, not just giving their money to Republicans, but loudly complaining that the administration has been scapegoating them.
18 - jeannie danna
We kept troops in Germany and Korea too, without them being drawn back into combat.
Not the same conditions, Handyguy.
19 - jeannie danna
Of course they don't own, Obama. That's why this country's economy is in a holding pattern.
20 - roger nowosielski
Geithner and Summers, Obama's top financial honchos with well-established Wall Street connections, and Bernanke, another nonentity whose only asset is doublespeak, are the chief obstacles.
As to the military operations. Granted, Obama inherited both theaters of war; granted, he can't speak from the heart and talk of wasted lives. But the one thing he could have done was to dismantle both operations with all possible haste. But he caved in instead to the neocon voices and policy, which would surely declare him unpatriotic for making light of 9/ll and threats to national security due to terrorism. Yes, that's one thing he could have done but didn't because he doesn't have the spine.
To accentuate the spineless character of our Commander-In-Chief and the ridiculousness of the situation, we commit to Afghanistan build-up, knowing full well we shall be withdrawing within a year or so.
As far as I am concerned, there is no better demonstration of the lackluster and indecisive character of this administration: we're paying a lip service to conservative, hawkish interests, and capitalize on the fear instilled in American hearts since 9/11 while at the same time, moved a more progressive agenda heralded as the big "hope 'n change," we backpedal. Thus, we want to have out cake and eat it too. Pathetic.
The very notion of "counterinsurgency" is idiotic, yet our Harvard-educated president approved it. It's asinine to think you can exterminate terrorists locations at one site and believe you've solved the problem. Like cockroaches, they'll surely find another spot and nest there. Again, our president "approved" of this strategy, which amounts to paying it a lip service knowing full well it's doomed to failure.
I don't know what JFK would have done under the circumstances. The Bay of Pigs was a fiasco but, if memory serves, he got out of it gracefully and with honor.
Well, JFK didn't cave in, and neither did was Bobby, which is why perhaps both were assassinated. But they were real statesmen, people with gravitas. The present occupant of the White House is none of those things.
Which brings me to Mr. Ash's article. Except for the vitriol, quite justifiable in my not so humble opinion, there's nothing really wrong with it. Even his suggestion that Mr. Obama ought to have leveled with the American people and call a spade a spade is well taken. There always words one can find if the intent is right and heart in the right place. All it takes is courage.
Well, Mr. Obama hadn't, he didn't have the guts, for which reason it's not so outrageous to call him a liar, a white liar to be sure, but a liar nonetheless.
21 - handyguy
Timothy Geithner has never held a non-government job beyond a stint with Henry Kissinger's consulting firm more than 20 years ago. He has never worked for any Wall St bank.
Ben Bernanke is 10 or 20 or 100 times smarter than you or I or anyone else making dumb assertions on Blogcritics. He did indeed fail to see the depth of what was coming. Did you see it, in 2007 or early 2008? I don't remember any such predictions from you. If you were indeed clairvoyant, maybe you should be Fed chairman or Treasury secretary.
None of the actions that Geithner, Bernanke and Summers have taken in the last 18 months have been happily embraced by Wall St; they are working hard in almost impossible, unprecedented conditions. And they probably helped avert a Second Great Depression.
But all you want is blood, and since they're not giving you that, you caricatue them as villains.
Throwing slime around on the internet is great sport, so have at it. It doesn't rate very high on the list of how to discuss important issues, however.
22 - Zedd
Adam,
Come on. It takes a lot of courage for an 18yr old to walk into a combat situation, on a street, in a city, in a country that is completely unfamiliar to him. Those young kids did what they were asked to do and they were courageous.
23 - Nat Woods
Well, I guess that lady with the lowercase name (#6) put me in my place, alright. I didn't realize one was not entitled to comment here if one has an *agenda* (I have no idea what the asterisks denote; just following her example). I double checked the Official Comment Policy, and found no reference to agendas. Maybe some people just make up the rules around here as they go along, huh?
24 - Zedd
Adam,
50,000 people are back home. This is when a thinking person who understands that most processes are incremental AND who understands the volatility and vulnerability of Iraq right now does a fist pump and then continues to put pressure on the powers that be to end this situation WELL.
Also, there are specific designations for various military endeavors. The portion that has ended is labeled "combat operations". Meaning the last combat brigade has left. I really am not sure why that is confusing or problematic for you.
Yes you don't like the President but goodness, 21 months after office and 50,000 troops are home.
I will only extrapolate that you are not one to enjoy the moment. Feel it. It is a good thing.
25 - jeannie danna
Nat Woods,
Sorry.
I reacted strongly to your comment and page. For that, I owe you an apology.