The present-day U.S. military qualifies by any measure as highly professional, much more so than its Cold War predecessor. Yet the purpose of today’s professionals is not to preserve peace but to fight unending wars in distant places. Intoxicated by a post-Cold War belief in its own omnipotence, the United States allowed itself to be drawn into a long series of armed conflicts, almost all of them yielding unintended consequences and imposing greater than anticipated costs. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. forces have destroyed many targets and killed many people. Only rarely, however, have they succeeded in accomplishing their assigned political purposes. . . . [F]rom our present vantage point, it becomes apparent that the “Revolution of ‘89” did not initiate a new era of history. At most, the events of that year fostered various unhelpful illusions that impeded our capacity to recognize and respond to the forces of change that actually matter.

Andrew Bacevich


Thursday, March 19, 2015

Special post for Thursday, March 19, 2015


Today is the 12th anniversary of the event that led to the creation of this blog, which was originally called Today in Iraq. That is of course the U.S. invasion of Iraq. This is how George W. Bush justified his action on that day:

Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.

We will meet that threat now with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.
As we now know, these statements were lies. The inestimable Bill, at Daily Kos, provides a small sample of the lies that propelled the U.S. into an illegal war of aggression, a disaster for Iraq, the region, and our own nation, with horrific repercussions that are still metastasizing.

I probably should not be surprised that I find absolutely no mention of this anniversary anywhere in the corporate media. Think Progress, at least, posted a timeline of the war two days ago and has updated the post today. Lest we forget? We already have.

Posted by Cervantes at 6:52 AM

2 comments:

anatta said...

I doubt you'll see a stand alone story, or even mentioning the anniversary with the latest war actually active in Iraq

March 19, 2015 at 10:28 AM
Dancewater said...

I was in DC protesting, as usual.

March 23, 2015 at 10:43 PM

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