Policy

US War A Record Of Unparalleled Failure

June 12, 2014 Tom Engelhardt, www.tomdispatch.com Educate! Foreign Policy, Policy, Wars and Militarism

The United States has been at war -- major boots-on-the-ground conflicts and minor interventions, firefights, air strikes, drone assassination campaigns, occupations, special ops raids, proxy conflicts, and covert actions -- nearly nonstop since the Vietnam War began. That’s more than half a century of experience with war, American-style, and yet few in our world bother to draw the obvious conclusions. Given the historical record, those conclusions should be staring us in the face. They are, however, the words that can’t be said in a country committed to a military-first approach to the world, a continual build-up of its forces, an emphasis on pioneering work in the development and deployment of the latest destructive technology, and a repetitious cycling through styles of war from full-scale invasions and occupations to counterinsurgency, proxy wars, and back again. So here are five straightforward lessons -- none acceptable in what passes for discussion and debate in this country -- that could be drawn from that last half century of every kind of American warfare: 1. No matter how you define American-style war or its goals, it doesn’t work. Ever.

Warmonger Media Storm Against Sgt. Bergdahl

June 7, 2014 Robert Naiman, www.truth-out.org Educate! Congress, Guantanamo Bay, Policy, Wars and Militarism

If you want to understand why it's the case that on the one hand, the US public and the majority of Congress turned against the war in Afghanistan a long time ago, and yet on the other hand, it's been so hard to end the war, this week's warmonger media storm against the diplomatic rescue of US prisoner of war Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has been very instructive. It's been known for years that a key step toward ending the war would be exchanging five Taliban prisoners of war at Guantanamo for the release of Sgt. Bergdahl. There has never been any serious dispute of the case that this would be a key step toward ending the war. I challenge anyone to find a counter-example to my claim. The political forces that are trashing the deal to rescue Sgt. Bergdahl are the same political forces that got us into the Iraq war. They are the same political forces who want to keep the Afghanistan war going indefinitely. They are the same political forces who want to keep the Guantanamo prison open indefinitely. Again, I challenge anyone to provide a single counterexample of someone in Congress who voted against the Iraq war, or who has been a leader in trying to end the war in Afghanistan, or who has been a leader in trying to close the Guantanamo prison, who is now trashing the diplomatic deal to rescue Sgt. Bergdahl.

Elite Interests vs. Public Priorities

June 7, 2014 Michael DeVore, www.plutocracytoday.blogspot.sg Educate! Democracy, oligarchy, Policy

Why are the opinions of the majority so widely misreported or overlooked? Perhaps it is that the emerging populist attitudes of the Populist Majority contrast starkly with those of American elites. The following contrasts elite opinion with that of majority opinion on a range of issues, in a recent survey funded by the Russell Sage Foundation. 1 Unless otherwise stated, elites are defined as at or near the top 1 percent of U.S. wealth-holders and have an average income of more than $1 million annually. Public opinion was calculated by averaging polls together from various mainstream firms, such as Gallup and Pew, on a wide range of issues: We live in a populist moment. The populist debate has only just begun, and as long as this economy is not working for working people, majority support for the new populism is likely to build, not dissipate. Politicians in both parties are likely to find it necessary to appeal to those attitudes, not scorn them.

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