To one degree or another, we have been on the Soviet path for years and yet, ever more desperately, we continue to plan more surges. Our military, like the Soviet one, has not lost a battle and has occupied whatever ground it chose to take. Yet, in the process, it has won less than nothing at all. Our country, still far more wealthy than the Soviet Union ever was, has nonetheless entered its Soviet phase. At home, in the increasing emphasis on surveillance of every sort, there is even a hint of what made "soviet" and "totalitarian" synonymous.
The U.S. economy looks increasingly sclerotic; moneys for an aging and rotting infrastructure are long gone; state and city governments are laying off teachers, police, even firefighters; Americans are unemployed in near record numbers; global oil prices (for a country that has in no way begun to wean itself from its dependence on foreign oil) are ominously on the rise; and yet taxpayer money continues to pour into the military and into our foreign wars. It has recently been estimated, for instance, that after spending $11.6 billion in 2011 on the training, supply, and support of the Afghan army and police, the U.S. will continue to spend an average of $6.2 billion a year at least through 2015 (and undoubtedly into an unknown future) – and that's but one expense in the estimated $120 billion to $160 billion a year being spent at present on the Afghan War, what can only be described as part of America's war stimulus package abroad.
Rofl sorry but Lew Rockwell is so far to the right he's basically fornicating with Ayn Rand about eugenics.
Perpetual War got to love it, well until you run out of money. Hell even when you run out of money, just start up the propaganda machines to say everything is fine and get the central banks to print more money.
The Urge to Surge by Tom Engelhardt
comparison of the current US counterinsurgency strategy with the Soviets sweep and clear approach is disengenous at worst and merely uninformed at best.
what is disingenuous is your attempt to pretend the OP was addressing strategies used rather than a recognition of the ultimate identical outcomes of the wars in the same region - despite the strategies employed by the two major powers
the outcomes can't be divorced from the strategies. the ultimate Soviet goal was permanent domination; the ultimate American one is that we leave a reasonably representative Afghan government capable of taking on the Taliban / AQ elements independently.
the outcomes can't be divorced from the strategies. the ultimate Soviet goal was permanent domination; the ultimate American one is that we leave a reasonably representative Afghan government capable of taking on the Taliban / AQ elements independently.
before you confused strategy with outcome. now you mistake goal with outcome
notice the ruskies did not accomplish domination
and the USA will also fail to bring the afghanis to heel
reasonably representative just like the house of saud?
or do you mean reasonably representative like our own congress with their glorious 9% approval?
we're not trying to 'bring them to heel'. methinks you are not well schooled in counterinsurgency doctrine.
so, you want us to believe that we do not have as an objective to get afghanis - especially the government - to conform to our expectations
a novel - and very incorrect - position
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