Eight years ago ago today, March 20, the U.S. invaded Iraq.
We’re still there.
Then we invaded Afghanistan.
We’re still there.
Yesterday, March 19, 2011, we launched air strikes over Libya. 110 Tomahawk missiles. President Obama claims this will last days, not months or years. But as Jonathan Alter of Newsweek put it, “It’s a third war.” Grounds troops haven’t been ruled out. The international coalition Obama mentions consists of the U.S., the U.K., and France. And oh, we having the blessing of the Arab states, who don’t like Gaddafi. Then why aren’t the Arab states firing missiles? Why aren’t they sending in ground troops?
Are we going to launch missiles against Yemen and the Sudan, too? Or against every other Arab state where the people rise up against despots? Why are we the world cop? We have huge problems in our own country and we’re more than $14 trillion in debt.
According to infoplease.com, the cost of the war in Iraq has, so far, cost the U.S. $802 billion and, in Afghanistan, $455.4 billion. By the end of the fiscal year in 2011, these two wars will have cost $1.29 trillion. Yes, you read that figure correctly.
Meanwhile, the richest 1-2% of Americans are enjoying large tax cuts for another few years (Bush started that and Obama perpetuated it), and the Republicans in Congress talk about how imperative it is to cut spending. You know, cut spending through social program like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, through public education, NPR, the arts…well, you – get the picture. The poor and the middle class are supposed to pay for these wars.
These wars aren’t just about despots and the hunger of the oppressed for freedom. They’re about resources that richer nations want and which the poorest nations have – start with oil. In her brilliant book, The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein illustrates how disaster capitalism – “the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock” works. And she takes you back through 50 years of history – from Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973 to the tsunami in Indonesia in 2004 and to Hurricane Katrina and beyond.
So what is it the U.S. is really protecting in Libya? Even though Libya produces only 1.6 million of the 87 million barrels of oil used on this planet daily, it produces the highest quality of light, sweet crude oil. And this stuff is easily refined into gasoline and diesel and is lower in sulfur, so it’s cleaner to burn.
We’ll see if/how the shock doctrine plays out in Libya.
Glad I’m not the only one who is bothered by Obama’s interest in golf since becoming president. To me, its a signal that he sold out to the corporations, because deals get discussed and made on the golf course. Clinton and GWB were not known to play golf either, before they became president (so far as I recall). What is it about the presidency that turns men into golf-obsessed Tiger wannabes?
Frankly. Obama is a real disappointment. I’d vote for him again only if he was up against someone like Palin. Or some other repug idiot child.
I think there is a lot going on behind the scenes that we’ll never know, such as the idea that Obama is doing what he has to do in order to keep himself or his family safe and alive. I believe the M-I-C has the true power in America and presidents are merely puppets for their global power schemes. If Bush or Obama strayed from the script regarding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, then they run the risk of going the way of JFK in Dallas 1963. I really want to see Obama walk out of the White House and into retirement, doing what he is able to do within his constraints.
There are no good Republican options for 2012. Republicans know this and no one looks like they want to be the sacrificial lamb, other than the jokers hinting at a possible run. The real race will be in 2016, as I suspect Scott Brown will end up as the nominee and president, but candidates like Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, John Thune, Bobby Jindal, and maybe even Marc Rubio will run.
The M-I-C and Wall Street picks the puppet for us to have the illusion of voting for. The only way we can really lessen the power of the M-I-C is being conscious of what we buy, but unfortunately, each time we fill our cars up with gasoline, we are complicit in the globalist schemes of the M-I-C. Our energy consumption as a nation requires us to have bases around the world and meddle in Middle Eastern politics.
I am past PO’d. The nuclear reactors in Japan are melting down…#2. There are tens of thousands of Japanese people dead, countless people homeless, starving, dying of thirst. Food and water tainted by radiation. The U.S military is stricking Libya in War number 3. Where is the esteemed president of the United States of America RIGHT THIS MINUTE?? He is PLAYING GOLF!!! I will have nothing good to say about this man ever again. He’s lost this American support and vote forever. He might as well thumb his nose at all the traumas going on. His truth is showing. There is no reason, NONE, that can excuse his latest lack of leadership and his idiocy.
Also, I wanted to mention that Gadhafi absolutely must go. If he is able to remain in power, this will send a signal to the other regimes in the Middle East that is facing massive protests that they can follow Gadhafi’s example and refuse to listen to the demands of the people. Ben Ali of Tunisia flew off into exile pretty quickly, but Mubarak of Egypt took a little longer to be convinced that leaving power was in the best interests of all concerned. Gadhafi is refusing to follow that path and I fear that if he is allowed to remain in power, the mass movement of people in the Middle East wanting freedom and democracy will die out. This is why I see our actions in Libya as a good thing despite what most of my fellow progressives think.
Just wanted to point out that we invaded Afghanistan first (in October 2001 in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks). When Rumsfeld complained about the lack of good targets in “primitive” Afghanistan and didn’t want to waste million dollar weapons to “shoot a camel in the ass”, he (and the other neo-cons) were pushing for war in Iraq, which was launched in March 2003. Neo-conservatives, in their uber-manhood boasting liked to say, “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad, but real men want to go to Tehran.” They were pushing for war against Iran, and I have a feeling that if it were not for Condoleezza Rice and the Democrats retaking Congress in 2006, that Bush might have launched a war in Iran in 2007.
As for the military strikes against Libya, I actually supported this. I thought it came a week late, though. Gadhafi was going to slaughter the rebels of Benghazi if we did nothing. I’m not a knee-jerk anti-militarist, as I believe that military action is warranted to prevent genocide or a humanitarian crisis where innocent lives are at risk of being slaughtered by a ruthless dictator. I was against the invasion of Iraq because I did not trust Bush’s true motives and the Iraqi people needed to rise up against their dictator, just as the Libyans have done. Doing nothing, though, means that Gadhafi will ultimately do to the rebellion what Saddam did to Iraqis at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. I believe this military strike is a just action. I’m against sending in ground troops. Let the rebels fight the Gadhafi loyalists on the ground, but give them air cover. Something we failed to do at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba and it cost us dearly for a half-century since.
I feel like the American people are basically helpless to stop this. “Our country” is perpetuating these conflicts even though what I would ASSUME is the majority of our citizens are TOTALLY AGAINST IT.
It’s disgusting.
It’s not really OUR country. It belongs to the bureaucrats and war machines!
I wouldn’t be surprised either, if Gaddafi is being resurrected as the new boogie man (since in all probability Bin Laden is already dead) ,so the government will have an excuse to really crack down on security measures like body scanners,bio-IDs,etc,when the next 911 happens.
Nothing like having a villain (real or imagined) to whip the citizens into a state of fear,and then sell the zombies anything you want to bring in,under the guise of “it’s for your own good”. $-)
? So in this deep recession in the UK.how much exactly does a Tomahawk missile cost ?? about the cost of keeping a hospital open??
There’s always money for war, it seems. No concern about deficits. War hawks trump deficit hawks. Many are one and the same.
You have to know that the richest of the rich are the ones producing weapons. It isn’t just about oil – it has to do with the Military Industrial Complex and the black ops groups that even the President doesn’t know about. That money isn’t even counted in the Budget. They will continue to make uses for their “products.”
It’s the way things have been done for decades. Part of the old paradigm that still seems to be thriving.
Crazy, do we never learn. So many questions. Do we know who the Libyan rebels actually are? What if these attacks fail to stop Gaddafi’s forces? Will we then send in ground troops? Not sure that the coalition know the answers or even have a long term strategy.
Maybe Bahrain should be bombed as well while we are at it. No, forgot, can’t do that as it has a US base there. We have to be selective as to who is bombed. The driving forces are oil and money.
How about Syria? I just read in this paper this morning that they’re having protests. What about saudi arabia? No, forget that. They’re our mideast buddies. I don’t know, it’s just a big mess. I agree with you completely, Mike.
From the photos these people seemed dead from small arm fire rather than tomahawk cruise missiles. Libya .
Gaddafi is handing out weapons to a million people in Libya. So small arm fire deaths shouldn’t be surprising.
Thanks to you for writing this post, and thanks for your comment on my blog wherein I kind of rant about the same thing. Your figures are absolutely astounding. Imagine what kind of America we could have if that money had gone into creating viable and innovative alternative energy. As an example, in Tucson I see a number of individual businesses that have gone “off the grid” because they invested in solar energy (admittedly, something readily available here). Private citizens who are now not paying any electric bills……..if even a few billion dollars were seriously invested in helping local people to aquire that technology inexpensively and easily in the past 20 years, Middle Eastern oil might not be such an issue.
The underlying mythos of our world is based upon patriarchal thinking, military values, and so all the wealth, all the resources go into war as a first priority, with whatever is left for quality of life getting sloppy seconds. We have to begin to question and to evolve beyond this paradigm, absolutely have to now. As Japan faces nuclear meltdown, which will impact the water and air we all breath and drink – why the heck are we sending bombs to Libya, instead of help and humanitarian aid to Japan? And yet seemingly we have no control whatsoever over the military establishment – they simply do what they want.
Sometimes I think the warlords that control the Pentagon are determined to bankrupt America as soon as possible, so everyone will be poor, desperate, and pliable. If so, we’re well on our way. Thanks again for your post.
The Pentagon should be defunded. Let’s cut there first.
All things come in threes….demonstrated once again. Even in Japan, (Earthquake, tsunami, nuclear disaster) of which, coincidentally, almost all has vanished from the front page and now one must search for the smallest print in the last pages to find any mention of what’s happening there. Who’s hiding what? Must we always create a war as a means of distraction? Because that is at least a PART of the Libya invasion. Certainly not all of it. But a new war takes our attention from the imminent dangers of another Chernobyl event and puts it in the midst of a third war, relegating Japan to the back of the mind. It isn’t working. And the money and loss of life this war will add on top of the two already in progress? Unrelenting stupidity. Just stupidity and greed.
Japan is no longer the top story in the news cycle.
Oh…,and “The Shock Doctrine” should be on everyone’s reading list.
Great book.Explains a lot of what’s happening in the world and why.
Highly recommended…along with John Pilger’s “War on Democracy” DVD.
haven’t seen that DVD, Daz, but will take a look. Thanks for the info!
You couldn’t have summed it up any better,Trish.