I would say that there was no possible, feasible plan for part 2, which made the plan for part 1 a terrible, awful joke. The people in charge were arrogant idiots, but geniuses would not have done it better. They wouldn’t have done it at all.
This is a great piece on the crime that was the Iraq war, and what it says about our own perilous proximity to authoritarian rule and fascism.
One question that should be asked about any war: “What did all those people die for?” The answer should come back simple and clear: “They died to free the slaves,” or “they died to rid Europe of fascism,” or “they died defending their homes, or '"they died freeing their country from an invading occupier.” As the event recedes into the past, this reason should become more, not less, clear. What was perhaps ambiguous or complex to the actors in the moment should appear increasingly self-evident. But if the answer to that question comes back convoluted and equivocal, full of vague hopes, reasons of state, or stratagems about international relations, one can be pretty sure that war was fought for a bad reason or, even worse perhaps, no reason at all.
…
This indifference towards the constraints of reality, this drive to make a fantasy world real, this confusion between the creation of propaganda and the war, or rather, the waging of war itself as a kind of propaganda campaign, are the type of things we normally associate with totalitarian regimes. So too the mobilization of vicious public abuse and slander against anti-war sentiment. This was done not out of fear of the secret police but out of sheer enthusiasm: Many of the nation’s journalists and writers gladly volunteered for that work. They set out to make sure an insane thing became common sense among the elite.
…
The lesson of Iraq is that it can happen here . We are not immune: The entire nation can lose touch with reality. We saw all this happen with our own eyes. Let’s face it now: We all knew it was a lie. Some people just wanted to believe it or cynically didn’t care. We went to war and killed hundreds of thousands for something that was just not real. If the jingoism, militarism, and bureaucratic machinery of the Bush era somehow fuses with the rowdy, populist hate-mongering of Trumpism, then the question of fascism will be settled: we will unambiguously have it.
Powerful stuff. A lot I think goes back to 9/11. The criminal act of murdering thousands of people was horrific, to be sure. The way we parsed it, however, and the way we let it shape our actions over the next two decades was perhaps an even greater crime.
I think Americans were ill-prepared to be reminded that we weren’t untouchable, that bad things could and would happen to us. The myth of American exceptionalism is well-debated in many contexts, but in terms of international affairs and our place in the world it’s pretty clear to me that Americans by the early 21st century had internalized the idea that we were not only immune to the sorts of problems other countries had, but that we were destined to always be so by virtue of being the world’s greatest nation–in everything. The concept of being “good enough” or of being “one of the best” never resonated with us. It was “if you ain’t first you’re last” all the way, and we decided we were first. Nothing else was acceptable.
An attack by criminals intent on causing destruction and death for the expressed purpose of humiliating and terrifying Americans, like the one on 9/11, was an attack planned by people who knew what they were doing in at least one respect. The result was exactly that: we felt humiliated, because how could the world’s greatest nation be the victim of, well, anything; we were terrified because, even if we didn’t want to admit it, we had to for maybe the first time for many people privately question our whole national mythology.
That combo of humiliation and fear is what drove a lot of the subsequent actions we took, including I think the Iraq War in 2003. Not that there weren’t other forces involved; the greedy machinations of the war pigs never cease, and prosaic motivations like envy and pride always have a role to play. For the bulk of the population though, it didn’t take a great deal beyond some mummery at the UN (in which, having at the time at least a modicum of trust left in people like Powell, I was taken in for a time I admit) to activate the fear and humiliation we felt, and to whip up a good war frenzy.
I think there is a direct connection between a people’s conception of their own greatness and their willingness to wage aggressive war on other people. Our own history is full of examples where people in power manipulate the public in a manner so as to produce the thirst for blood necessary to support such an endeavor. Remember the Maine!
Rammstein’s “Deutschland” video deals with this. The lyrics have some wordplay on Germany’s historic sense of greatness and its relationship to its attempts to dominate others. So, yeah, I would say this is a fairly universal thing. It’s just that few nations are ever in the situation where they can convincingly tell themselves such things.
One of the things I loved about living in Ecuador is that, while there is no shortage of jingoism and machismo in the Ecuadorian people, their actual means and capacity to rain down destruction on other people is so attenuated that there really isn’t any sense that this sort of thing looms in the background the way it nearly always does in the US. The Ecuadorian elite doesn’t spend any time on fomenting unrest about the coming conflict with China, or the need to police the peoples of the Middle East. They’ve got enough on their plate just trying to deal with the problem of funding and delivering social services.
Which describes most people in most countries I think, even relatively big ones. Except the USA.
Timex
3366
I think there’s a very real notion that other countries also just kind of assume that the USA is going to keep things going. We were talking about it in the other thread, and the state of other nations’ military capabilties. Part of the reason they can afford the luxury of not really having a military capability, is because the US is there to provide some degree of protection.
Despite the mistakes made by the US, if the US’s general military dominance didn’t exist, I suspect that the world would be a more violent place, not less, because military violence would be perceived as a more generally accessible solution to more nations.
If your military is engaged in an environment where a player is utterly dominant like the US military, then there kind of isn’t any reason to bother. You’re never going to be a real player on that level.
But if that player didn’t exist, and a third rate military could actually enable military expansion because you’d only be dealing with other third rate militaries? That might change the calculus of how your spend your money.
There have been a lot of wars since 1945. Even if you exclude internal conflicts.
The Pax Americana seems selective.
Timex
3368
I think it is selective, but at the same time that list contains
Relatively few conflicts that I’d consider full blown wars. Some of them are essentially just a single engagement that lasted a few days.
Thrag
3369
In retrospect, Cheney was completely right regarding the invasion of Iraq.
ShivaX
3370
Honestly might be the most patriotic song there is.
Certainly one of the most honest.
ShivaX
3372
It is, that’s what makes it so real.
As stupid as it is America, Fuck Yeah is up there as well in a lot of ways to me, but it’s not as heartfelt and sincere, obviously.
Dejin
3373
A really nice overview of the development of Tank Armour from WW1 to the present from the Tank Museum at Bovington UK. Nothing that a typical Grognard won’t know, but it’s very nicely done with lots of video of actual vehicles.
Dejin
3374
The B-52 is getting an upgrade. Better engines (they say the old ones are becoming increasingly hard to get parts for) and an upgraded radar:
Alstein
3377
Most cases of this are used for failing drug tests.
To be fair, WIkileaks was replaced by War Thunder forums a while ago as the de rigueur spot to drop your classified docs.
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