Posted on 01/24/2014 5:04:25 AM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
“He ended one war and kept us out of any other,” is the tribute paid President Eisenhower.
Ike ended the Korean conflict in 1953, refused to intervene to save the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, and, rather than back the British-French-Israeli invasion, ordered them all out of Egypt in 1956.
Ending America's longest wars may prove to be Barack Obama’s legacy.
For, while ending wars without victory may not garner from the historians’ the accolade of “great” or “near great,” it is sometimes the duty of a president who has inherited a war the nation no longer wishes to fight.
That was Nixon’s fate, as well as Ike’s, and Obama’s.
And as we look back at our interventions in the 21st century, where are the gains of all our fighting, bleeding and dying?
We know the costs — 8,000 dead, 40,000 wounded, $2 trillion in wealth sunk. But where are the benefits?
After Moammar Gadhafi fell in Libya, the mercenaries he had hired returned to Mali. The French had to intervene. In Benghazi, the city we started the war to save, a U.S. ambassador and three Americans would be murdered by terrorists.
Libya today appears to be breaking apart.
While Gadhafi was dreadful, what threat was he to us, especially after he had surrendered his weapons of mass destruction?
In Egypt, we helped overthrow President Hosni Mubarak and hailed the election of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammad Morsi.
A year later, we green-lighted Morsi’s overthrow by Mubarak’s army.
Terrorism has returned to Egypt, the Sinai is now a no man’s land, and almost all Egypt hates us now.
The Shia regime we brought to power in Iraq has so repressed the Sunnis that Anbar province is now hosting al-Qaida. Fallujah and Ramadi have fallen. President Nuri al-Maliki is asking for U.S. weapons to retrieve Anbar and for U.S. personnel to train his soldiers.
Unlike the bad, old Iraq, the new Iraq tilts to Tehran.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign a status of forces agreement giving our troops legal protections if they remain. This could cause a complete U.S. pullout in 2014, leading to the return of the Taliban we drove out in 2001.
Sunday saw terrorism in the heart of Kabul, with a restaurant favored by foreign officials targeted by a car bomb, followed by a machine-gunning of dining patrons in which 21 were killed.
Americans have fought bravely there for a dozen years.
But how has our nation building in the Hindu Kush benefited the good old USA?
Pakistan, with nuclear weapons, has become a haven of the Taliban, perhaps the most dangerous country on earth. Anti-American elements in the Khyber region have, because of our drone attacks, been blocking a U.S. troop exodus to the sea.
How enduring is what we accomplished in Afghanistan?
Last summer, Obama, goaded by democracy crusaders and the War Party, was about to launch strikes on Syria when America arose as one to call a halt.
We did not attack Syria. Had we, we would have struck a blow for an insurgency dominated by the al-Nusra Front and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The ISIS goal? Detach Anbar from Iraq and unite it with jihadist-occupied sectors of Syria in a new caliphate.
Can we not see that Bashar Assad’s worst enemies are ours as well?
Syria’s civil war, which has cost 100,000 dead, with millions uprooted and a million in exile, has spilled over into Lebanon, where Hezbollah backs Assad and the Sunnis back the rebels.
The neoconservatives say much of this might have been averted, had we left a stronger contingent of U.S. troops in Iraq and supported the Syrian uprising before the jihadists took control.
They were for attacking Assad last summer, are for more severe sanctions on Iran now, and are for war if Iran does not give up all enrichment of uranium.
But the neocons have broken their pick with the people. For they have been wrong about just about everything.
They were wrong about Saddam’s WMD and a “cakewalk” war.
They were wrong about how welcome we would be in Iraq and how Baghdad would become a flourishing democracy and model for the Mideast.
They did not see the Sunni-Shia war our intervention would ignite.
They were wrong about how our interests would be served in attacking Libya.
They did not see the disaster that would unfold in Pakistan.
While we did not follow their advice and attack Syria, how have we suffered from having taken a pass on Syria’s civil-sectarian war?
From Libya to Lebanon, Syria to Yemen, Iraq to Afghanistan, the Maghreb and Middle East are aflame. What have we lost by getting out of the wars Obama found us in? How would we benefit from parachuting back into the middle of the fire?
Which raises a related question: Was Obama wrong in extricating us from the wars into which George W. Bush plunged his country?
How will history answer that one?
Hmmmmm....doesn't the Islamic enemy have a say as to when the fighting stops?
I’d dismantle the 1st part of his argument but, that it is needed to bolster the second part.
Still, Communism was improve, the USSR dismantled, Sandinistas defeated and in general liberty, personal rights and capitalism continue to expand....
Ain't that simple. "Benefits" should be calculated not on the position at start and end of fighting, but on position at the end with and without having fought.
Which is of course a hypothetical and therefore impossible to prove one way or the other.
Communism was disproven .....
(fixed)
Pat’s all over the map here. Can’t figure out where the heck he’s going with this one.
“And as we look back at our interventions in the 21st century, where are the gains of all our fighting, bleeding and dying?”
Gains are little. Much of what we gained, though small, was squandered by the Lead From Behind president.
Right.
0bama didn’t end the war in Iraq, just our active combat participation.
We haven’t gained much from our wars of the last 40-odd years. Lots of dead Americans, plenty of wore-out equipment, and, big bills for the American taxpayer. Economic gains? Political gains? Geo-political gains? Not much. We today are leaving Afghanistan and Iraq and Al-Qaida and Company are simply rushing back in as we do.
Just saying. What exactly do we have to show for the last several decades of sending Americans to armed conflict?
The last war we won was WWII . That was the last time we had enough courage to DEFEAT an enemy. The rest of the “wars” have been “politically correct” and have gained us NOTHING. For example, we still have troops in Korea, we lost in Vietnam, we’ve now lost in Iran and we will lose in Afghanistan. We should never again get into a war unless the reason is strong enough to produce the goal of DEFEATING the enemy...killing them along with their women and children.
Saddam Hussein was no Islamist. He was a secular nationalist who had as much to fear from militant Islam as anybody.
none of those wars were wrong.
How we conducted them was wrong.
We should never have sent ground troops into ANY of those places. Tactical nukes from 50,000 feet, problem solved.
Al Qaeda is the enemy, and they are not going to stop. Period.
Interesting summary by Buchanan
The problem with the whole Middle East wars was the lack of commitment to win the war on Islamic Terrorism by our civilian leadership...GW Bush stating “Islam is a Religion of Peace” way too many times was the obvious signal he was not committed to win.
Obama lack similar commitment to win. Even worse...his anti US and No. American development (Fracking, Keystone) would take away the economic threat of Islamic Terrorist supporters in the Middle East...something GWB did not have
Buchanan may be anti-Semitic....but his analysis is accurate here
We shouldn’t get into a war until postmodernism is deposed as our dominant philosophy. We had no moral abhorrence to razing entire cities in WWII because we knew our cause was just. Now we wait until the enemy, hiding among children, shoots at us. If they run into a mosque, they’re safe. If we capture them, they’re set free to fight again.
Good point, but the American people can be easily coaxed into a war if others are doing the fighting for THEM.
Yes...it was the execution of the wars...not the decision to go...that was the error
There again, we “won” WW2, but lost the peace immediately thereafter.
Remember how GWB swore more than once that his Iraq venture “against terrorism” would NOT be “another Vietnam”. Maybe one day George P. will get it right and redeem his family failures.
if we are not willing to do what is necessary to WIN, then we have no business starting a war to begin with!
Basically it boils down to this... Every time we are tempted into starting a war... we need to ask ourselves if we are willing to nuke a city over the issue. If the answer is no... THEN DON'T GO TO WAR!!
I believe and will always believe that the American people right after 9-11 would have supported a nuclear strike on Iraq (in particular on the city of Fallujah when they were cutting off Americans heads on a daily bases and hanging the burned bodies of Americans from the bridge there. Had we done that then, the war would have ended instantly and none of the blood and treasure we have spilt since would have occurred.
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