THE "DECIDER" – MASTER BUNGLER OF ALL TIME
TWO WARS HOPELESSLY LOST – "ENDLESS VIETNAM"
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER
Yesterday, I "stumbled" on an excellent article on Iraq by Daniel Pipes. Though Pipes writes for "neocon" lobby groups and works for Murdock’s tabloid, the New York Post, he is anything but the usual idiot they keep around. His article, Limping Away from a Shattered Iraq is very telling, if perhaps by accident.
Carelessly picked up by the ‘naysaying right’ (FamilySecurityMatters.org – a GOP anti-Obama "gasbag") as an indictment of Obama policies, it clearly outlines the horrible decisions Bush made in negotiating the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) restricting US troops, actually imprisoning them, in Iraq.
In his whining narrative about how America will suffer for the hopeless mess of Iraq, for decades to come, Pipes, feeding at the trough of his masters, neglects to examine the "inadvisability and illegality" of the ill fated invasion itself.
His prediction, that Iraq will sink into barbarism and fall under the influence of Iran may well be true. The pro-American Kurdish Regional Goverment in the north is becoming more and more independent of the government in Iraq, locked away in a US built fortress called "the green zone." "Cut and run" describes George W. Bush from school to his "truncated" military career to a life of utter failure. Iraq is just another "inconvenient memory" to someone famous for having no memory.
Iraq, an advanced country with an educated and sophisticated populace is a picnic compared to Afghanistan. There, we stumbled beyond belief, tying America to a massive corrupt drug cartel. Those of us know know the players here can’t help but drown in irony……
With little understanding of the primitive nature of Afghanistan or the corrupt government we were forcing on them, we stumbled in, overturned the repressive Taliban regime and replaced it with a central government that governs nothing.
Our history in Afghanistan over the last two decades involved actually putting the Taliban in power and arming and building up the war lords, some of whom would side with us, though war criminals and drug traffickers and some would side against us.
Many have done both. One warlord, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, received over $500,000,000 in US military aid yet is now listed as one of the prime movers behind 9/11. This is not a unique situation. Most of our enemies are sitting on fat bank accounts from the CIA or US AID.
President Karzai is hardly even the mayor of Kabul much less president of Afghanistan. While he is ruling Kabul, or part of it, this former US puppet is usually attacking American efforts to protect him by accusing US troops of war crimes. President Diem of Vietnam was a joy compared to this guy.
After years of ineptitude at the hands of the Bush administration and its "attention defecit" policies, we find ourselves at step one, with an ally incapable of even the most basic defense and government functions, but highly capable of eating billons of dollars and spewing out hundreds of tons of opium with every increasing efficiency.
Was this the plan?
It all comes back to Tora Bora. When we had Osama Bin Laden, he simply got into a white Chevy Tahoe and drove away. We pulled back our troops and assigned his capture to an war lord known to be working with him.
The same "decider" that loaded the Bin Laden family onto planes before the FBI could question them and spirited them out of the country made this decision. What were his motivations?
America now stands, trapped and clueless. We are leaving Iraq as a total disaster, no government, no infrastructure and likely to fall into the hands of our enemies. It cost us hundreds of billions and thousands of lives to accomplish that.
We are pouring troops and money into Afghanistan, trying to repeat our victory in Vietnam. Little could have been done to duplicate Vietnam more accurately without bringing in the jungle.
- We are supporting a corrupt government everyone hates
- We are tying ourselves to drug warlords and war criminals
- We know nothing of the people and their history
- We are fighting an enemy that can hide with the civilian population of disappear across a border at will.
- They can’t lose, they only have to wait until we leave.
How it can be less than obvious to some that our war on terror was planned long before 9/11 amazes me. We have the facts. We know the Iraq invasion was planned "during the campaign" and not in response to any known threat.
The motivation for this? Was it religious insanity on our part? Was it part of a successful attempt to send the US back into the Middle Ages by destroying our economy?
Was it simply a stupid and bored rich kid who had failed at everything in his life who hated his father and wanted to relive grandiosity not seen since the Third Reich? I am going with this one.
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.
Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.
Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.
Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.
ATTENTION READERS
We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully InformedIn fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion.
About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy
