Has Perpetual War Arrived? U.S. Troops Returning To Iraq and Afghanistan

[From article] Departing U.S. commander Gen. John Campbell says there will need to be U.S. boots on the ground “for years to come.” Making good on President Obama’s commitment to remove all U.S. forces by next January, said Campbell, “would put the whole mission at risk.”
“Afghanistan has not achieved an enduring level of security and stability that justifies a reduction of our support. … 2016 could be no better and possibly worse than 2015.”
Translation: A U.S. withdrawal would risk a Taliban takeover with Kabul becoming the new Saigon and our Afghan friends massacred.
Fifteen years in, and we are stuck.

 

Nor is America about to end the next longest war in its history: Iraq. Defense Secretary Ash Carter plans to send units of the 101st Airborne back to Iraq to join the 4,000 Americans now fighting there,
[. . .]Vladimir Putin’s plunge into the Syrian civil war with air power appears to have turned the tide in favor of Bashar Assad.
The “moderate” rebels are being driven out of Aleppo and tens of thousands of refugees are streaming toward the Turkish border.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is said to be enraged with the U.S. for collaborating with Syrian Kurds against ISIS and with Obama’s failure to follow through on his dictate — “Assad must go!”
There is thus no end in sight to the U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, nor to the U.S.-backed Saudi war in Yemen, where ISIS and al-Qaida have re-arisen in the chaos.
Indeed, the West is mulling over military intervention in Libya to crush ISIS there and halt the refugee flood into Europe.
[. . .]



“Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security” said Dunford, “If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I would have to point to Russia … if you look at their behavior, it’s nothing short of alarming.”
[. . .]
How do these tribal and territorial conflicts in the far east of Europe so threaten us that U.S. generals are declaring that “Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security”?
Asked to name other threats to the United States, Gen. Dunford listed them in this order: China, North Korea, ISIS.
[. . .]

 

how does China threaten the United States?
[. . .]Last fall, though, Sen. Ted Cruz reassured us that “the single biggest national security threat facing America right now is the threat of a nuclear Iran.”
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded,” wrote James Madison, “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
Perhaps Madison was wrong.
Otherwise, with no end to war on America’s horizon, the prospect of this free republic enduring is, well, doubtful.

http://buchanan.org/blog/how-republics-perish-124781

How Republics Perish
Friday - February 12, 2016 at 5:20 pm
Patrick J. Buchanan

Thomas Paine Needed To Counter Misguided Democratic Party Policies

[From article]
In his masterpiece, Common Sense, Thomas Paine observed:
Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.
[. . .]
after seven years of Obama leading the Democratic Party in insane notions of transforming the country, it is clear that rational thought and common sense are skill sets greatly lacking among liberal elites.
Whether blinded by ideology, motivated by egocentrism and nihilism, or solely focused on their goals of destroying America’s exceptionalism (while ensuring that Democrats rule forever), liberals are incapable of scientific inquiry, common sense analyses, and reason.
[. . .]
“Let them eat cake” is the unspoken mantra whispered at White House dinners. While Obama, Kerry, and Gore fly around the globe in their private jets, the rest of us are forced to use inefficient energy-saving appliances, ridiculously expensive light bulbs, and toilets with no water pressure. Our elitist-in-chief lectured Americans, "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times," and proceeded to heat the Oval Office to a temperature appropriate for growing orchids.
[. . .]
By his own estimation, Obama himself is an existential threat to mankind.
[. . .]
Anyone questioning the liberal mantra that Islam is a religion of peace, despite data to the contrary, is labeled an Islamophobe with the aim of shutting down honest debate. Islamists declared war on the U.S. well before 9/11 and yet liberals still refuse to name the enemy. To liberals, political correctness trumps common sense.
[. . .]
Refusing to recognize that terrorists will not only obtain guns whenever they want but that their weapon of choice is more often a bomb, liberals’ inability to reason has and will continue to lead to loss of life and limb. Only a change in commander-in-chief will save Americans from living through decades of terrorist attacks on our shores.
[. . .]
Iran has been at war with America since the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis in 1979.
Liberals ignore chants of “Death to America,” the murder of our soldiers on battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iranian-sponsored terrorism across the world
[. . .]
Democrats are so ignorantly enamored by European-style socialism, despite its complete collapse, that the U.S. economy has not grown during Obama’s reign and the divide among economic classes has widened.
[. . .]
Affirmative action and other forms of social manipulation will not produce more productive members of society but rather, more resentful minorities. And bringing in untold numbers of indigent immigrants, whether Hispanic, Muslim, or otherwise, will only create more of a burden on government-run social welfare programs.
[. . .]
Obama, Holder, Jarrett and the gang would have us believe that we are a country of racists. [. . .] this gang of angry black folks is fueling the flames of hate -- at the expense of African-Americans. Obama’s divisiveness has set the civil rights movement back decades
[. . .]
Whether sic’ing the IRS on those with whom he disagrees or ordering the NSA to spy on Congress and the Israelis, Obama has enlisted all troops to fight his perceived domestic enemies. His DOJ nonsensically fails to prosecute criminals (Black Panthers and CAIR) while fabricating cases against individuals who disagree with his policies, including Bob Menendez who voted against his Iran deal. [and Dinesh D'Souza]
[. . .]
In liberal la-la-land, our historic friends are now our enemies on whom we spy and our decades-long enemies are friends who get $150 billion and nuclear weapons for doing nothing other than threatening our national security.
[. . .]
History will look back at an America that won the Cold War under Reagan only to reignite it under Obama. Our descendants will ponder how their ancestors abandoned American supremacy, ingenuity, and civility due to ignorance, idealism, and an irrational obsession with politically correct progressivism that led to the transformation -– and decline -- of this once great nation.
[. . .]
Obama took an oath to defend the Constitution. He has been at war with its constraints since day one, usurping power from the other branches of government and ignoring the laws that he swore to uphold and the security of the country he vowed to defend.
[. . .]
Safe spaces, coed locker rooms and unisex bathrooms in elementary schools and government-funded harvesting of fetal tissue at Planned Parenthoods are all the rage these days.
[. . .]
Obama does not believe in the Constitutional limits of office. His hope is that if his actions are on the books long enough, they will become impossible to reverse.
[. . .]
under the dictatorial, insanely irrational policies of the liberals dominating the Democratic Party, the country is destined to fall into the same abyss as the Roman Empire.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/obama_and_the_insanity_of_the_liberal_mind.html

January 6, 2016
Obama and the Insanity of the Liberal Mind
By Lauri B. Regan

Difficult Decision Time, White House Hibernates

[From article]
You can play it either way, but "a plague on both their houses" didn't cut it in 1941, and it doesn't cut it in 2015.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 gave Hitler room to conquer Western Europe without fear of an attack on his rear. Stalin was a committed member of the pact until Hitler broke it, at which point Stalin brazenly pivoted to the Allies and demanded rights as a) a full partner and b) an aid recipient. FDR might have said, "Boy, watching Adolph and Uncle Joe battle it out would be great – fascists vs. communists, and no American boots on the ground."
[. . .]
FDR made a great many difficult and ugly decisions – aside from interning Japanese-American citizens and not bombing the railroad tracks to Auschwitz. In this context, he made two for what he thought was the greater good: ignoring Stalin's crimes, and committing all the resources necessary to achieve the unconditional surrender of Axis forces. He put the American economy on a war footing, drafted millions of soldiers, and dropped tons of bombs that often didn't distinguish between military forces and civilians. He believed that the faster the war ended, the better it was for the civilians and everyone else. It wasn't a perfect understanding – particularly for the Jews waiting for deliverance. But it was his understanding, and Truman concurred. Dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a calculated decision to take the casualties, including civilians, up front.
[. . .]
The Cold War was the diplomatic way of boxing in the USSR until it collapsed.
That is not a tactical proposal for coming to grips with the dual horrors of ISIS and Iran. It is a strategic one.
The United States, President Obama, has to decide who the primary enemy is and how best to stop that one. Vladimir Putin posits that ISIS comes first, and requests – begs – the West to take on Sunni jihadists while giving Shiite jihadists a pass.
[. . .]
It is untenable for the U.S. to continue to dither.
[. . .]
Spending half a billion dollars training small groups of Syrians who lie when they pledge to fight ISIS rather than Assad; failing to provide weapons to the Kurds, who constitute the only serious fighting force south of Turkey; doctoring CENTCOM intelligence; and hectoring Putin – as the president did and continues to do – are also doomed to failure.
[. . .]
Thomas Hobbes is the prophet. "Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues. No arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
If that works for you, fine. Otherwise, it is time to choose and get on with the war that is already raging around us.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/09/hitler_or_stalin_the_case_for_choosing.html

September 30, 2015
Hitler or Stalin? The Case for Choosing
By Shoshana Bryen

NGOs Misguided Policies May Bring On New Cold War

[From article]

Reportedly, [US Department of] State funneled $350,000 to an American NGO called OneVoice, which has an Israeli subsidiary, Victory 15, that collaborated with U.S. operatives to bring Bibi down.
If we are now secretly pumping cash into the free elections of friendly countries, to dump leaders President Obama dislikes, Americans have a right to know why we are using Cold War tactics against democracies.

[. . .]

Hopefully, after looking into OneVoice and V15, the Senate will expand its investigation into a larger question: Is the U.S. using NGOs to subvert regimes around the world? And, if so, who decides which regimes may be subverted?
[. . .]
And if we are now using NGOs as fronts for secret operations to dump over regimes, we are putting all NGOs abroad under suspicion and at risk.
Not in our lifetimes has America been more distrusted and disliked. And among the reasons is that we are seen as constantly carping at governments that do not measure up to our standards of democracy, and endlessly interfering in the internal affairs of nations that do not threaten us.
[. . .]
Nor is it Moscow alone that is angered over U.S. interference in its internal affairs and those of its neighbor nations.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt has expelled members of U.S. NGOs. Beijing believes U.S. NGOs were behind the Occupy-Wall-Street-style street blockages in Hong Kong.

http://buchanan.org/blog/are-ngos-agents-of-subversion-15774

Are NGOs Agents of Subversion?
Tuesday - March 24, 2015 at 1:39 am
By Patrick J. Buchanan

Pat Buchanan Warns Over Engaging Militarily in Ukraine

[From article]
In crises over Berlin in 1948 and 1961, the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Prague in 1968, U.S. forces in Europe stayed in their barracks.
We saw the Elbe as Moscow’s red line, and they saw it as ours.
While Reagan sent weapons to anti-Communist rebels in Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan, to the heroic Poles of Gdansk he sent only mimeograph machines.
That Cold War caution and prudence may be at an end.
[. . .]
In crises over Berlin in 1948 and 1961, the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Prague in 1968, U.S. forces in Europe stayed in their barracks.
We saw the Elbe as Moscow’s red line, and they saw it as ours.
While Reagan sent weapons to anti-Communist rebels in Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan, to the heroic Poles of Gdansk he sent only mimeograph machines.
That Cold War caution and prudence may be at an end.
[. . .]
In crises over Berlin in 1948 and 1961, the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Prague in 1968, U.S. forces in Europe stayed in their barracks.
We saw the Elbe as Moscow’s red line, and they saw it as ours.
While Reagan sent weapons to anti-Communist rebels in Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan, to the heroic Poles of Gdansk he sent only mimeograph machines.
That Cold War caution and prudence may be at an end.

http://buchanan.org/blog/u-s-russia-clash-in-ukraine-15550

U.S.-Russia Clash in Ukraine?
Tuesday - February 3, 2015 at 1:22 am
By Patrick J. Buchanan

Academic Historians Attack History By Seeker of Truth, Diana West

American Betrayal
Diana West
St. Martin's Press
May 28, 2013
New York

[From article]
Where a professional historian pursues an academic career, the amateur seeks after the truth. Ignorant of taboos, the amateur can follow the trail of evidence to wherever it leads and discovers things which, according to the academic conventional wisdom, are best left untouched and unsaid.
[. . .]
Did all these people (the glorious FDR administration) really conduct the Second World War in the interests of Western democracies, or was it in the interests of Comrade Stalin? Having declared that war to defend the freedom of Poland, the Western democracies ended it by surrendering Poland and a dozen other nations to a totalitarian empire worse than Hitler’s. Was that really a victory? Above all, was that outcome inevitable, or did it, to a greater or lesser extent, result from the work of the Soviet agents of influence in the positions of power in the West?
[. . .]
if some 80 years later we find the Western Establishment to be utterly corrupt, we should know what has corrupted them.
The Left have learned a lot since the times of Duranty and Agitprop. They no longer try to argue with such books as Mrs. West’s. They no longer try to sue us for libel in the courts of law. They quietly assassinate such books well in advance, by confidential e-mails to publishers and editors. In rare cases when that does not work and the book is out, they simply ignore it and wait for another crisis in the Middle East, or the release of the next series of the latest blockbuster, or mid-term elections, to distract the public attention from everything else. They simply let the dangerous revelations sink in the massive flood of information that overwhelms today’s readers.
[. . .]
The “consensus” is that Soviet agents of influence had no real influence, that FDR was a great patriot and war leader, and that Stalin’s occupation of half of the world was the best possible outcome of the war. On these points, it has emerged, the "conservative" and "liberal" academics have no disagreements. All their disagreements are about how exactly to explain away the facts that do not fit into their “consensus," and how exactly to suppress dissent.
[. . .]
In the best traditions of those campaigns, most of the eminent critics attacked the book without ever reading it, and some of them even admitted this. Come to think of it, one hardly needs to read a book in order to accompany any mention of it with a garland of epithets such as “awful”, “embarrassingly kooky”, “poorly conceived”, “ill-informed”, “conspiracy-mongering”, “preposterous”, “incompetent”, and “dishonest”, and to insult the author in similarly intelligent expressions, including positive assertions that Mrs. West is insane (pity Professor Lunz is no longer with us).
[. . .]
The difference is no greater than between a "liberal" academic liar and a "conservative" one.
[. . .]
Some of us here are talking about truth and lies. And this, perhaps, is precisely what annoys the academics, whose monopoly on writing history depend upon the half-truths of the "consensus."
[. . .]
There is another danger in attacking books without reading them.
[. . .]
It is in the nature of a totalitarian regime to try and corrupt not only its own society, but anybody within its reach. This is how they conquer the world. Communism has corrupted greater men than a few arrogant academics. Indeed, the academics turned out to be one of the easier targets.
[. . .]
As a ‘community’, they are bound together with their corrupt colleagues, and have to defend their collective monopoly against intruders. It is for a very long time that they have been no more than a self-serving nomenklatura, caring nothing about the truth, but only about their own elevated positions. Like politicians. Like the media. Like the rest of the modern world.
[. . .]
To them, the history of that battle has been no more than a comfortable job. They never saw establishing the truth about it as a sacred duty we owe to the memory of millions of victims; but merely as a matter for “gentlemanly give-and-take” between "liberals" and "conservatives," leading to a sound academic consensus.
[. . .]
A nice, endless debate with no practical conclusions– just what the academics need.
[. . .]
Diana West, with her “reckless” discoveries, has jeopardized their comfortable world.
[. . .]
The sheer number of their academic degrees bears witness to their infinite knowledge. It is just that they lacked honesty and courage to tell us the truth.
Clearly, history is far too important to be left to the historians.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/09/26/Its-worse-than-a-conspiracy-it%20-s-consensus

WHY ACADEMICS HATE DIANA WEST
by VLADIMIR BUKOVSKY AND PAVEL STROILOV 28 Sep 2013

* * *
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2614/-Professor-Radosh-Gets-an-F.aspx

"Professor" Radosh Gets an "F"
Written by: Diana West

Friday, August 09, 2013 2:08 AM 

Losing the Cultural War


"we're failing badly on the struggle's intellectual and cultural front. Many of the most devastating blows struck against Soviet totalitarianism were inflicted by writers and artists who'd lived under the system and then found allies in the West who appreciated their work and, most important, disseminated it."
[. . .]
the open society's example as a changer of hearts and minds.
[. . .]
Jihadism involves a conscious rejection of democracy, modernity and the open society

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rutten30-2009dec30,0,1984482.column

Jihadism and the Cold War
The West won the Cold War; we can use some of the same tactics to defeat Islamic extremism.
Tim Rutten
Los Angeles Times
December 30, 2009