As a veteran of one war, I can see similarities in how we are conducting this war. We’re really doing nothing different that what we did in Vietnam. We have developed and use the same formula in every major conflict since the end of World War II.
Here is the US formula for the cycle of war in 14 easy steps.
1. Begin by telling the American people a pretext for involvement. Mainly appeal to the themes that Americans can relate to. We want to assist a peoples’ plight from oppression, people who are dying to be free, to have democracy, to have human rights, to have equality, to live life in the pursuit of happiness. In this case, we were attacked.
2. Find a puppet we can install to put in charge so the world won’t think we’re the outright aggressors.
3. Begin to fight the insurgents by supplying arms to the puppet government. Funny, we call them the insurgents, but in reality we’re supporting the real insurgents, the puppet government only a few of the citizens support.
4. We send advisory personnel there to “train” the army of the puppet government and prop them up.
5. Things don’t go as planned, and begin to get out of hand, so we sent a few thousand troops over there to support the failing army.
6. Things continue to go against us, as the army we supposedly trained can’t tie their own shoelaces without us.
7. So, we escalate. We send tens of thousands of troops over there, since we want to protect the ones already there, stabilize the puppet government, so we can make a hero’s exit and leave behind a solid democracy. Overwhelm them with sheer numbers.
8. We bomb the bejesus out of the “enemy”, who in reality the population supports, killing thousands of innocent civilians in the process. Funny, it doesn’t seem to be doing any good, so we drop more bombs.
9. Finally, things begin to falter and we get war weary, the citizens back home are restless, more and more troops are coming home in bodybags.
10. We finally see the futility of our actions and begin to pull out, completing the task in a couple of years so as to evacuate our personnel safely.
11. The “enemy” then fills the vacuum we created by pulling out, and begins to disembowel the army we armed and trained, allegedly, and the country begins to disintegrate.
12. Out of guilt, we evacuate the puppet government and its leaders, since if they stay, they will face a firing squad. We fly them to Paris so they can live a life in exile in semi luxury, at least the puppet heads.
13. Thousands of our soldiers are not so lucky. Many come back in bodybags; others wounded, physically and mentally, and the government turns their backs on them, making them fend for themselves.
14. We lay low for 25-30 years, then begin to look around again. Hmmm, let’s see who’s getting oppressed…….
And all the while, we took the lives of thousands of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire, giving them the very treatment we said the “enemy” was doing in the first place.
And the MIC makes huge profits while thousands of families cope with their loss.
That’s how it was and this is how this conflict will end. When will we ever learn, and stop waving our dicks?
In theory, I want to think all war is bad. But then I think of Nazi Germany, and I wonder — how do civilized nations respond to that?
KK great article. My only contention is a question of semantics.
Is there any way to conduct war in a good way?
War should be avoided at all costs because there is no good way to conduct war.
I thinking you are bringing up two subjects one is how and why does government sell war and the other is how wars are conducted.
In my opinion the sell job is the evil intent. While waging war is always the evil act once the decision is to start a conflict. Waging a clean or humane war is simply not possible.
The movie “War Games” had a great line; “A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”
The difference between Vietnam and the Afghanistan War is that there are genuine terrorists that want to kill us and attack the USA, whereby with Vietnam they were killing each other in a civil war, until we interfered.
The government sold the Vietnam War using the communist scare tactic, in that we were fighting in Vietnam to stop communism from spreading.
We have to go after the terrorists because they pose a real threat to the West.
KKid,thanks for a very succinct summary of the significant similarities (too many s’s there, but you know what I mean) between the Viet Nam era and today’s.
Isn’t it frustrating that the generation being asked to serve in the current conflicts is–obviously–too young to be aware of the fact that we have–in many ways–been here, done this before?
There seems to be a requirement that every twenty to forty years we make the same blunders we did several times before. And–since hardly anyone studies history–it’s all unknown news to the nineteen year old who’s sent to wherever to do it all over again. Frustrating!
Step 13.5: We leave a big base, or a few bases and installations there. We put our foot down and keep it there.
(the U.S. has bases in more than twenty five countries, or more than ten percent of ALL the countries in the world. Think about this. Think if there were a Chinese base , actually Chinese PROPERTY, with guards keeping you out and hundreds of Chinese soldiers trained to kill you – er, protect you – living inside it, somewhere between your home and your office, and you had to drive by it every day. This is the situation for tens of thousands of people in the world.)
WTS, you are so right about the bases, we go in to “help” and never seem to leave.
I highly doubt that most of these basis would be considered of high strategic value for our nations security ‘if’ the did a legitimate study…instead of closing bases here and letting them fall to ruin, we should close most of these bases overseas.
But that ain’t gonna happen in the near future, the MIC power is too entrenched in our economy, both houses of congress and our country.
Bravo, KK! What a great article! I agree all the way!
The part that angers me most is the deliberate deception of the American people by the government. I don’t know whether they think that we are not able to see through all the flag waving and “spreading democracy” crap that we are fed, or that they just don’t give a flying flip whether we like it or not. I would have to vote for the latter. They, the politicians, are going to support the MIC, making sure that the HUGE defense budget goes to the right people, of course.
With the Iraq war, we had another element…a puppet president of our own with an evil behind the throne that we had not seen the likes of. We had the puppet’s personal vendetta to avenge his daddy for some threat (real or imagined) and used by the Dark Lord to perpetuate his “new world order” of never-ending war! Frighten the people…and you can have it. The sheep will cower in their homes with their plastic sheeting and their duct tape! And all the while, disguise the entire operation with religious overtones, calling on the big dude in the sky to come down and smite our enemies!
I still believe that Sinclair Lewis made one of the pertinent quotes about the rise of the MIC and the deception of the people…
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
Don’t get me started!