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Since 9/11, The U.S. Has Been Involved In More Than 5 Wars … And They’ve All Been Disasters
Below, we demonstrate that the U.S. keeps “losing” war after war.
There are 3 potential reasons this might be happening:
- Is this chaos an intentional way to implement regime change and grab resources?
- Or is this a sign of the decline of the American empire … and we just can’t win a war anymore?
- Or do those in charge just not really give a damn about winning … and are they just focusing on one short-term goal after another?
We’ll let you decide why you think this keeps happening. But if you don’t believe that the U.S. has been losing its recent wars, read on …
U.S. Keeps Messing Up
We noted last year:
Since 2001, the U.S. has undertaken regime change in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
All 3 countries are now in chaos … and extremists are more in control than ever.
Iraq
In Iraq, hardcore Islamic jihadis known as ISIS have taken over much of the country – shown in red as the new “Islamic State” or self-described caliphate – using captured American weapons:
USA Today notes: “Iraq is already splitting into three states“.
Christians are being rounded up and killed, and Christian leaders in Iraq say the end of Christianity in Iraq is “very near”. But as we documented in 2012, Saddam Hussein – for all his faults – was a secular leader who tolerated Christians.
Libya
Libya has also descended into absolute chaos. We reported in 2012:
Al Qaeda is now largely in control of Libya. Indeed, Al Qaeda flags were flown over the Benghazi courthouse once Gaddafi was toppled.
(This is – again – in contrast to toleration of Christians under Gadaffi.)
The Guardian noted in March:
According to Amnesty International, the “mounting curbs on freedom of expression are threatening the rights Libyans sought to gain“. A repressive Gaddafi-era law has been amended to criminalise any insults to officials or the general national congress (the interim parliament). One journalist, Amara al-Khattabi, was put on trial for alleging corruption among judges. Satellite television stations deemed critical of the authorities have been banned, one station has been attacked with rocket-propelled grenades, and journalists have been assassinated.
***
Ever since the fall of [Gadaffi’s] dictatorship, there have been stories of black Libyans being treated en masse as Gaddafi loyalists and attacked. In a savage act of collective punishment, 35,000 people were driven out of Tawergha in retaliation for the brutal siege of the anti-Gaddafi stronghold of Misrata. The town was trashed and its inhabitants have been left in what human rights organisations are calling “deplorable conditions” in a Tripoli refugee camp. Such forced removals continue elsewhere. Thousands have been arbitrarily detained without any pretence of due process; and judges, prosecutors, lawyers and witnesses have been attacked or even killed. Libya’s first post-Gaddafi prosecutor general, Abdulaziz Al-Hassadi, was assassinated in the town of Derna last month.
***
When residents of Benghazi – the heartland of the revolution – protested against militia rule in June last year, 32 people were killed in what became known as “Black Saturday”. In another protest in Tripoli last November, 46 died and 500 were injured.
Under militia rule, Libya is beginning to disintegrate. Last summer forces under the command of the warlord Ibrahim Jadran took control of eastern oil terminals …. These forces which hijacked a oil tanker this month, prompting threats from Libya’s prime minister that it would be bombed until US forces captured it this weekend. Clashes have broken out in Jadran’s home town of Ajdabiya. In painful echoes of Iraq’s nightmare, a car bomb exploded at a Benghazi military base last week and killed at least eight soldiers, and Libya’s main airport was shut on Friday after a bomb exploded on its runway.
One of the great perversities of the so-called war on terror is that fundamentalist Islamist forces have flourished as a direct consequence of it. Libya is no exception, even though such movements often have little popular support. The Muslim Brotherhood and other elements are better organised than many of their rivals, helping to remove the prime minister, push through legislation, and establish alliances with opportunistic militias.
Ominously, Libya’s chaos is spilling across the region. The country is awash with up to 15 million rifles and other weapons, and a report by the UN panel of experts this month found that “Libya has become a primary source of illicit weapons“. These arms are fuelling chaos in 14 countries, including Somalia, the Central African Republic, Nigeria and Niger.
***
There is a real prospect of the country collapsing into civil war or even breaking up. Unless there are negotiated settlements to its multiple problems, Libya will surely continue its descent into mayhem, and the region could be dragged into the mire with it.
No wonder western governments and journalists who hailed the success of this intervention are so silent. But here are the consequences of their war, and they must take responsibility for them.
28-year CIA veteran Paul Pillar – who rose to be one of the agency’s top analysts – wrote in May:
Just when one might have thought the mess in Libya could not have gotten worse, it has.
***
Saudi Arabia and several other Arab states have evacuated their diplomats from Libya, the United States is preparing for possible evacuation of U.S. personnel, and the country appears on the brink of a larger civil war.
***
Those in Libya closest to being called secular liberals seem to be associated with military officers of the old regime.
***
The intervention already has negatively affected U.S. interests, particularly in providing a disincentive to other regimes to do what Gaddafi did in negotiating an end to involvement in terrorism and an end to production of unconventional weapons.
And things have only gotten worse since then … and Benghazi has fallen to the jihadis.
(It should be remembered that the U.S. helped sew the seeds of chaos in several ways. Not only did we engage in direct military intervention against Gadafi, but also – as confirmed by a group of CIA officers – armed Al Qaeda so that they would help topple Gaddafi.)
Afghanistan
Opium production is at an all-time high under the American occupation of Afghanistan.
And the New York Times reports this week that the Taliban are currently making huge gains in Afghanistan … in some cases expanding even beyond their traditional areas of influence prior to 2001:
The Taliban have found success beyond their traditional strongholds in the rural south and are now dominating territory near crucial highways and cities that surround Kabul, the capital, in strategic provinces like Kapisa and Nangarhar.
U.S. troops are just now leaving, and so the worst may be still to come. In addition – as we discuss below – the U.S. previously imposed regime change on Afghanistan … and the results were bad.
History Repeats
The U.S. carried out regime change in Iran in 1953 … which led to radicalization in the country. Specifically, the CIA admits that the U.S. overthrew the moderate, suit-and-tie-wearing, Democratically-elected prime minister of Iran in 1953. (He was overthrown because he had nationalized Iran’s oil, which had previously been controlled by BP and other Western oil companies). As part of that action, the CIA admits that it hired Iranians to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its prime minister.
If the U.S. hadn’t overthrown the moderate Iranian government, the fundamentalist Mullahs would have never taken over. Iran has been known for thousands of years for tolerating Christians and other religious minorities.
Hawks in the U.S. government been pushing for another round of regime change in Iran for decades.
Hillary Clinton and then-president Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser have both admitted on the record that the U.S. previously carried out regime change in Afghanistan in the 1970s by backing Bin Laden and the Mujahadin … the precursor to Al Qaeda.
And look how that turned out.
Syria
The U.S. has heavily backed the Islamic rebels in Syria in an attempt to implement regime change in that country. The result?
As shown by the map above, they’ve taken a third of the country as part of their “caliphate”
And the jihadis are now busily crucifying, beheading and slitting the throats of Christians. (Yup, Syria was previously known for tolerating Christians.)
***
We can probably add Ukraine to the list of regime changed countries falling into chaos and murderous extremism, given that:
- The U.S. State Department spent more than $5 billion dollars in pushing Ukraine away from Russia
- The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine (Geoffrey Pyatt) and assistant Secretary of State (Victoria Nuland) were recorded plotting the downfall of the former Ukraine government in a leaked recording
- Top-level U.S. officials literally handed out cookies to the protesters who overthrew the Ukrainian government
- The U.S. has been backing – militarily as well as monetarily – the Neo-Nazis who have plunged the country into chaos
Since then, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Ukraine have descended into still more hellish levels of chaos.
The U.S.-backed government in Ukraine is starting to lose the civil war.
Many of the U.S.-backed rebels in Syria have joined ISIS. And most of the weapons given to the “moderate” rebels have ended up in ISIS and Al Qaeda’s hands.
Mother Jones adds Yemen to the list:
So here’s my scorecard for American military interventions since 2000:
- Afghanistan: A disaster. It’s arguable that Afghanistan is no worse off than it was in 2001, but after losing thousands of American lives and spending a trillion American dollars, it’s no better off either. [Since the government has put a gag order on all military information, it’s hard to know what’s really going on.]
- Iraq: An even bigger disaster. Saddam Hussein was a uniquely vicious dictator, but even at that there’s not much question that Iraq is worse off than it was in 2003. We got rid of Saddam, but got a dysfunctional sectarian government and ISIS in return.
- Libya: Another disaster. We got rid of Muammar Qaddafi, but got a Somalia-level failed state in return.
- Yemen: Yet another disaster. After years of drone warfare, Houthi rebels have taken over the government. This appears to be simultaneously a win for Iran, which backs the rebels, and al-Qaeda, which may benefit from the resulting chaos. That’s quite a twofer.
What a sorry track record …
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I would like to report that Operation Chaos is a stunning success.
We're ruled by sociopaths.
You want to start winning wars? Elect President Richsob and we'll go on a winning streak. I've got the experience of serving in uniform, I've been shot at (and hit 3 times), I can run circles around the average dumbass in Congress and I actually speak foreign languages. My first campaign pledge is I'll scare the holy fuck out of ISIS by capturing as many of them as we don't kill and then feed them to the pigs. They want to film shit? OK, we'll film them getting eaten alive by hogs and being killed by the hundreds when the U.S. and it's allies "don't fight fair". My second campaign pledge is I'll guarantee Putin that we're not going to mess with the Ukraine thing if he'll kick in some troops to serve along side American soldiers in showing the world we can be a team working together to fight terrorism. I'll even invite the Chinese to join us if they'd like to help fight Muslim terrorists. President Richsob: What a Democrat used to be and what a Republican should be.
Scare the .... out of ISIS?
You don't even know what ISIS is!
I'm more inclinded to believe that the CIA will scare the ... out of you when one of its field operatives shows up beside your bed at night and teach you how to commit suicide with a single gunshot to the back of your head. Of course, given your views and campaign promises, you will be accorded the same courtesy the current crop of Washington politicians are getting.
The Chinese are already fighting Uyghur...read a book, shitwit.
Please identify what country you 're looking to be elected to lead. Could you also identify what uniform you wore?
U.S. U.S.M.C.
God - I knew I had seen that face before - fire watch SD. Fukin awesome pic icon
The only meaning of a war is making money out of a war. The outcome of war isn't the reason of the war, but the consequence. Now, does Bush really care about Iraqi people? he doesn't! Do american people care? Bush was caring american people's caring iraqi people? LOL. We really have nohting to do with Iraq besides the oil out there.
Since Nixon ended the draft in '73 we have had a mercenary army.... one that wages war for profit and pay. There are no bonuses for "winning", only termination... incentives are heavily weighted to prolong exisitng wars and find new ones.
Exactly. Our armed services have been reduced to disposable and replaceable mercenaries. America keeps losing wars because they're not America's wars. At least not in the sense that they benefit America. They only benefit the criminal psychopathic control freaks who can demolish and plunder any country they want by abusing the military, on the strength of absolute lies.
Then when things go wrong they tell more lies, change lanes, and send the troops and weapons someplace else with no regard for the dead and woulded servicemen nor the rot they create then abandon. No questions asked, and if there are any questions, rest assured the answers are lies.
A 'volunteer' military produces groupthink that SUPPORTS war - no matter what. They 'follow orders' - and rarely will stop to question them no matter how illegal or immoral. Nothing against those serving - it's simply the way the system programs you - aided by freely dispensed meds in combat zones (WAAAY too much like the Nazis passing out meth to their troops).
Was at West Point towards the end of 'Nam. Nixon had yet to bomb Cambodia but it looked like it was easing off.....bwahaaaaaa. Even at USMA you had plenty of guys who were against the war. They may have gone with lottery numbers of 4 or 11 - looking to put things off for 4 more years, and maybe having the chance for something other than platoon leader footslogger... a bunch of my upperclassment had already had a year elsewhere - low draft lottery numbers and .... go now or 4 years at USMA - free college in exchange for 5 years (and maybe a better gig) service four years later... after Tet, could it get any worse? BUT you also had guys who WERE 'true believers' when they entered - but lost faith after three years of seeing former friends come home in body bags - and seeing just how FUBAR things really were. I had a great Platoon Leader - men would follow this guy to hell .... but he cared about his men and looked after them..... not one to mindlessly squander lives in pursuit of glory. EXACLY what the Army needed - but they hated him because he wasnt 'by the book' - those types got fragged as soon as they were out in the field.....
Funny... one of our sgts made a coment on the rifle range... he'd done two tours. He went on about how the Army really didn't like northern 'college boys'.... they asked too many questions. They THOUGHT about things. Good old southern boys were great. Tell them to charge up a hill into a machine gun and they'd go 'Yes SIR' - and go get killed... the college boys up north would go 'That's stupid....WHY exactly do we even want to go up that hill?'....'If we HAVE to go, how about flanking the position behind the cover over there and NOT getting ourselves killed?'... made more sense.....
Now anyone in the military CHOSE to be there - even if out of financial need. No boat rocking.
Funny but West Point says 'We produce the leaders that win wars.' I call BULLSHIT.
The ones that WIN wars are the draftees and reservists that want to get the damn thing over with - preferably LIVING through the experience. No dreams of glory or 'warrior' ways...... just 'If we HAVE to fight this war, get it the fuck over with'.
And those people are a LOT less likely to start a war over BS in the first place.....
But even our 'volunteer military' is showing the strain - hence Blackwater/Xe/whatever, Custer and all the other REAL mercenaries we're using now. Just like the Romans using the Goths to fight their wars - lots of foreign 'special forces' vets serving solely for the money.
How'd that Goth strategem work out for Rome in the end again?
That is a bit twisted my friend.
Volunteer militia is allowed for under the Constitution but they are supposed to be disbanded after two years. The only permanent military force allowed is the Navy. Correct me if I am wrong.
Bloody progressive criminal control freaks love the shit they can steal with a big government big military force. Look at what Hillary did to Libya.
Grimaldus
Our military leaders would do well to re-read their Roman history...Paid mercenaries were a great idea, until they couldn't pay them anymore. Then their precious troops decided to sack Rome and TAKE their pay in plunder.
Then they took everything else, and the Empire was no more.
Thanks for the insightful response. When did West Point fall into the hands of the psychopathic 1% who run this country? When it first started out soon after the Revolution it was focused on America. Was it after the CW that the central bankers saw the utility of usurping its corps? Because by 1898 they had already pulled off the false flag in Havana Harbor to get us into Asia. However they could not do this without long term military logistics, and for that they needed professional soldiers. Was this the starting point?
Maybe it was a recognition that an all-volunteer Continental Army could be both prohibitively expensive and a risk to their monied lives after the Whiskey Rebellion. ;)
Where would we be without the Randolph Hearst yellow jounalism brigade?
In Rupert Murdoch's yellow journalism brigade.
The goal is not winning wars, whatever "winning" might mean in the context of the post-9/11 wars with political movements that do not necessarily "own" the geographical territory that they inhabit at any particular time.
The goal is to have the wars so that the military-industrial-financial complex keeps generating profits for those who control it. In Iraq, the weapons of Raytheon, General Dynamics, et. al. were used to destroy the country, and the construction units of Halliburton rebuilt the infrastructure along with the largest US embassy in the world. The US taxpayers paid for all of it.
Wars are profitable, discounting the loss of life and limb of those stupid enough to fight foreign wars, as long as they are not fought on your own territory. The great blessing of the US, which it has squandered, is that it has two huge oceans to separate it from the constantly-warring Europeans. If Americans had heeded the advice that George Washington gave in his farewell address, the US could have been as close to a Garden of Eden as the earth has seen in historical times.
Washington wrote, in part:
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
You can read the full address at "http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp."
War is a business, big business, no need to "win" a war.
How Corporate America Supported Nazi Germany: Jacques Pauwelshttp://tv.globalresearch.ca/
Jacques Pauwels tells the truth about
business and world war II, much to think
about in that link.
http://www.tomatobubble.com/id126.html
March 1933: Rat faced Jews across the world unite and declare war on Germany. The jews were pissed off that Hitler kicked the jews out of key government positions, finance, and media. Hitler restored the German economy. If you look at the jewish provided population figures, 6 million never died. Red Cross figures it to be around 70,000, from TYPHUS. That's what the Zyklon-B was used for because they had zero hygiene skills.
Just yesterday, Saker had a similar article on this subject:
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2015/02/seven-countries-in-five-years....
These were/are not wars.
They were/are warehouse clearance sales for the neocons' military industrial friends.
However, in their favor, they were careful to limit collateral damage to peasant children gathering firewood and wedding parties.
Progressives are in charge, and have been. Not a constitutional conservative in sight.
Get it straight.
Grimaldus
What's the big surprise /shock here?
The neocons laid out their plans in the Project for a New American Century manifesto. They believed that the US should its role as THE world power to implement regime change throughout the Middle East in an effort to dominat the region and insure energy supplies for the US.
Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, The Sudan... the list goes on... Doesn't matte who's the Prez or what party controls Congress.... The wars continue
ALL those countries were on the PNAC hit list. The only one that's escaped US direct action so far is Iran - though God knows, the neocons have tried and tired again to ramp up that war - even trying a Gulf of Tonkin redux with 'Iranian speedbpat attacks' on US destroyers....
The neocons behind PNAC are all bat-shit crazy - enamored of never-ending war and having the US do whatever is necessary to remain the one and only empire (and if that serves Israel, well, even better.....).
These crazies were the driving force in the Bush race to war in Iraq - and many are sifgned up for Jeb 2016......
If the US continues to fall for this insanity, it deserves the fate that's in store.... an overextended arrogant Empire collapsing at an accelerated rate due to its own hubris.
Progressives are in charge, and have been. Why all the elaborate bullshit meant to cover for them?
Grimaldus
Don't forget that PNAC called foe 'a catalyzing event' like Pearl Harbor to get the whole project kicked off. Along comes 9.11 on cue.
We won all our wars through WW2. After that we have not. What changed?
We won WWII ? What about the efforts of the soviets in standing up to the germans? Also was it not our plutocrats who financed Hitler? I beleive his biggest mistake was screwing the bankers and setting up a barter group which bypassed the international banks in their efforts to obtain neccessary war materials. And was it not our country that saved so many nazis via the rat lines (via false credentials supplied by certain catholic entities?
Geez us - just got out of a coma from 1943 - you saying we won and the Krauts lost ? Really? wtf - who did the peace treaty?
WWII was a complete loss as we killed our own race while the jew bankers sat back and laughed and laughed and laughed. Jews controlled the media back then as they do today and the "greatest generation" was duped into signing up to kill their own race over a MOUNTAIN of jew lies.
The two World Wars were used to destroy the White race and European covilization. That decline continues apace to this day.
no such thing as the white race, you delusional mongrelized amerikkkan nazi.
they have accurate genetic testing these days you know. if you had the balls, you'd have the testing done and find out what % you are of black, asian, native american, etc.
Nature knows mutts are always the strongest; it's the "pure" inbred types who always have polydactylism and down syndrome they inherited from sister-momma.
When the Jew kamakazi hit the Jew bridge of my dad's Jew fast attack carrier, he was standing on the lucky side of the Jew bulkhead and he didn't get turned into smoldering matzo balls like most of his pals.
The Republic died and the Empire took over. It's collapsing now - those in charge are desperate to hold onto power....
Think of Rome in fast forward though Rome treated its client states far better - with far more tolerance. The US is using force in place of diplomacy and trying to milk the rest of the world of resources at cut rate prices as our own productivity drops. We're even resorting to mercenaries in place of its own citizens
Rome had to resort to the same tactic.
I would remind the reader we had won the Iraq war... until Obama unilaterally pulled our troops from there and handed the country back to Terrorist forces. Abandoning everyone who helped us to the terrorists.
In the war to unseat Qaddafi, the US and our European allies attacked the only despot on the planet to vociferously give up his WMD in a verifiable way... send a clear message to every other despot, "Don't give up your WMDS!!!" Thus ensuring Iran is getting a nuke.
Obama abandoned the doctor who gave us Saddam Hussein to be tortured and is in prison at this very moment.
In Afghanistan, Obama put so many strings on our boys and girls there, failure was a necessity.
You cannot fight a war a team of lawyers scrutinizing every action, by every soldier... for a misstep. How many of our boys are in jail right now for killing a terrorist who was shooting at them?
The rules of engagement are the problem, as they were in Vietnam. We haven't won, in short, because we have a traitor in the White House, his name is Barack Obama.
Looks like from the response to your post progressives don't like their own history.
Idiot motherfuckers. How twisted the criminal progressive mind.
Grimaldus
Dumba$$.
"I would remind the reader we had won the Iraq war... until Obama unilaterally pulled our troops.."
OH PULEEZE!!!! They paid the insurgents to stop attacking them. The war was lost before that happened.
If you call Iraqi people routinely being killed by market, roadside and other bombings a victory, then yeah, we had it won. Cuz everyone knows brown people being killed doesn't mean anything. /s
I'm not trying to say Obama is blameless in this. Far from it. He's screwed things up as well, if not better, than most of our past Presidents. But to pin all the blame on him is disingenuous at best. Just going back in our recent history will show you that W Bush, Clinton, HW Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon and Johnson all have the blood of American troops and a hell of a lot of foreign innocents and not-so-innocents on their hands through collective "fuck-uppery" of various sorts.
You seem to have an agenda... cherry picking your "facts" and ignoring the shortcomings of all our other leaders, political and military... On Jeb's team are we?
Jeb is a progressive, just the same as Hillary.
Grimaldus
Instead of agenda 21, it is agenda 21 thousand.
Look for the truth and get a butt full.
BO is not a traitor, he works for the other side of us.
Why start at 9/11. We haven't won a war since WW2.
with the smiley face fascist globalist agenda going full force forward it seems we're losing WW2 75 years later
JOBS, JOBS, JOBS! http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/08/31/snowden-reveals-first-ever-public-disclosure-of-secret-black-budget-programs/ (Probably this "budget" is a red herring... Snowden might be a red herring.)
They've not been disasters, or at least you should qualify that statement. They've been spectacular successes for the Military Industrial Complex as well as the Banks.