There are wars that need to be fought. There are wars that shouldn’t even be considered. In between are wars, whose purpose lurks somewhere
between hype and compelling, in which defining when one has won, appear as
elusive as its purpose. Since WWII,
which meets the first criteria, all of America’s wars have met the second
criteria. With incredible loss of life
and treasure, the U.S. went to war only to stop the fall of dominoes of our preferred
economic system from falling towards an adversarial economic system. The first of those wars ends with the
establishment of the 38th Parallel between two sovereign nations,
who are technically still in a state of war, and the one not friendly to
America, having nukes. Another war in a
nation the size of New England, which ends with the U.S. in full retreat,
highlighted by Americans pushing perfectly good recently arrived helicopter off
of carrier flight decks to make room for other incoming helicopters desperately
evacuating Americans as the Viet Cong victors occupy Saigon.
George W. Bush, and
his neocon handlers, having lived through this sordid war history, did not learn
from that history. Not only did Bush
seek out a new impossible war to prosecute, but his administration faked the intelligence
to get Congress, the American people, and the world to go along with him with
his Iraqi war. Having already started
the Afghanistan war, Bush abruptly drained the resources of this war, which was
considered a just response to 9/11, to prosecute the fake war in Iraq. This time, the feared falling dominoes were
that of friendly oil countries falling and turning into unfriendly oil
countries. He later dismissed the need to find and bring
to justice the persons responsible for 9/11, Osama Bin Laden and his
organization, Al-Qaida.
The question of Obama being the same, or worst, than Bush is
clearly answered. President Obama hasn’t
sought any new wars. In fact, he avoided
troop, and even pilot involvements in both Libya and Syria. President Obama, missed opportunities for
more aggressive troop draw downs in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But, perhaps the logistics and/or political
will to end wars appear to be much more difficult to divine than that needed to
start wars. I feel we should cut our
losses in Afghanistan and pull all of our troops.
President Obama, having inherited both of Bush’s wars, spent
his presidency getting us out of one war and winding down our involvement in
the other. His presidency has resulted
in finding and the taking out Bin Laden, and the severe crippling of
Al-Qaida. But, did Bin Laden’s death, or
the diminution of Al-Qaida, mean we won the war on terrorism?
What of the war on terrorism? Is it hype?
Or is Al-Qaida’s declared war on modernity and those they feel export
it, a compelling threat to U.S. national security? If so, the question becomes, how you
prosecute such a nebulous war. Put boots
on the ground? Invade Pakistan, Yemen, etc
with troops? Pay Pakistan, Yemen, etc to
eradicate the threat? Or continue Bush’s
use of unmanned drones, to perform surgical targeted killing of terrorist, with
as little collateral losses and damage as possible. If so, when do we stop? When do we know we’ve won the war? Has the use of drones mitigated terrorist
attacks on the U.S.? If the answers to
these questions are unknowable, it might be time to call in the drones, until
Congress, the Executive branch, and the military write rules of engagement consistent
with our and international laws, and values.
These are hard questions that are, no doubt, under careful consideration by President Obama, but would
only warranting a neocon kneejerk reaction, and a deepening quagmire under President
Bush. Obama same as Bush? In Bush's dreams.
