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

What Are Priorities of the White House Candidates?

[From article]
“If you’re in favor of World War III, you have your candidate.”
So said Rand Paul, looking directly at Gov. Chris Christie, who had just responded to a question from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer as to whether he would shoot down a Russian plane that violated his no-fly zone in Syria.
“Not only would I be prepared to do it, I would do it,” blurted Christie: “I would talk to Vladimir Putin … I’d say to him, ‘Listen, Mr. President, there’s a no-fly zone in Syria; you fly in, it applies to you.’
“Yes, we would shoot down the planes of Russian pilots if in fact they were stupid enough to think that this president was the same feckless weakling … we have in the Oval Office … right now.”
Ex-Gov. George Pataki and ex-Sen. Rick Santorum would also impose a no-fly zone and shoot down Russian planes that violated it. Said Gov. John Kasich, “It’s time we punched the Russians in the nose.”
Carly Fiorina would impose a no-fly zone and not even talk to Putin until we’ve conducted “military exercises in the Baltic States” on Russia’s border. Jeb Bush, too, would impose a no-fly zone.
These warhawks apparently assume that President Putin is a coward who, if you shoot down his warplanes, will back away from a fight.
[. . .]
Are we prepared to ride the up-escalator, at the top of which is nuclear war, if Putin, who has been boasting of his modernized nuclear forces, is also willing to ride it rather than back down?
Uber-hawk Lindsey Graham wants to send tens of thousands of American troops to fight ISIS, and refuses to work with Iran, Russia, or Syria’s Bashar Assad to crush our common enemy ISIS.
Graham prefers “allies,” like the Saudis and Gulf Arabs.
But both have bailed out of the air war on ISIS, and sent troops and bombers instead to attack the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
[. . .]
In Las Vegas, [Cruz] spoke of a new national-interest-based foreign policy, a policy that puts “America First.”
“If we topple Assad … ISIS will take over Syria, and it will worsen national security interests. And the approach — instead of being … a democracy promoter, we ought to hunt down our enemies and kill ISIS rather than creating opportunities for ISIS to control new countries.”
[. . .]
Trump cut loose with a sweeping indictment of mindless American interventionism in the Middle East:
“We’ve spent $4 trillion trying to topple various people that, frankly, if they were there and if we could have spent that $4 trillion in the United States to fix our roads, our bridges, and all of the other problems — our airports and all the other problems we have — we would have been a lot better off. …
[. . .]
It’s not like we had victory. It’s a mess. The Middle East is totally destabilized, a total and complete mess. I wish we had the 4 trillion dollars or 5 trillion dollars. I wish it were spent right here in the United States on schools, hospitals, roads, airports, and everything else that are all falling apart!”
[. . .]
the War Party Republicans, who have learned nothing from the past, should be relegated to the past.

http://buchanan.org/blog/america-first-or-world-war-iii-124443

America First — or World War III
Friday - December 18, 2015 at 3:48 pm
By Patrick J. Buchanan

Sarah Palin on Laura Ingraham radio show.