Yesterday I posted that the US had no high moral ground to castigate Putin due our Perpetual War/Regime change foreign policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria. That our complaints about Putin’s actions are hypocritical. That while I don’t agree with Putin’s action; the US has done the same in 4 separate nation over the past 20 years.
That post is now gone…without explanation.
Perhaps The Motley Fool has a traitorous Benedict Arnold option for deletion?
We cannot having Americans comparing current Russians actions with past US actions. Our country right or wrong.
A PhD student in history at George Mason University has an OP-ED piece titled:“Why I Won’t Fight”
https://original.antiwar.com/Brandan_Buck/2022/02/27/why-i-w…
He was a private in the US Army at Ft Knox doing his basic train on 9/11. He did 4 tours in Afghanistan.
I am old enough to remember the myopic, binary thinking of the early days of the Global War on Terror. Remember, “[e]ither you are with us, or you are with the terrorists?” Or, how about the terrorists “hate us for our freedom?” So, I am inured to the simplistic logic of “x is bad. Therefore, y is good, and z must be done.”
Similarly, I am slow to accept the notion that Putin desires to destroy the Western world, to drive his tanks clear through the former Soviet Bloc, and to menace Western Europe into submission. This is not to excuse his actions. I would not want to live under his rule. But we have seen this existential language before. I have been duped by it, and this go around, I am skeptical.
Me too. I bought our government lies regarding Iraq’s WMDs. And learn later from former secretary of the treasury O"Neill that the planning of Saddam Huessein was occurring prior to 9/11.
https://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/10/oneill.bush/
Of course, it easy to whip enthusiasm for foreign adventure as the US populace has no skin in the game. We can continue to shop, watch whatever as those sent are volunteers, professionals. All we must do is utter occasionally “We appreciate your service.”
Such foreign adventures do have consequences-economically for the defense industry, personally for service personnel & their families, and perhaps even politically.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2989040
Battlefield Casualties and Ballot Box Defeat: Did the Bush-Obama Wars Cost Clinton the White House?
Our statistical model suggests that if three states key to Trump’s victory – Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin – had suffered even a modestly lower casualty rate, all three could have flipped from red to blue and sent Hillary Clinton to the White House.