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Is it time to end the Forever War


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2020 Feb 3, 8:14am   477 views  5 comments

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New York Times
Edward Wong
By Edward Wong
Published Feb. 2, 2020
Updated Feb. 3, 2020, 10:05 a.m. ET

44
WASHINGTON — Nearly two decades after the fall of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon, American troops continue to wage war in Iraq, Afghanistan and lesser-known corners of the globe. President Trump almost opened another front last month when he approved the killing of Iran’s most powerful general.

“We took one of the world’s deadliest terrorists off the battlefield for good,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said recently, justifying the drone strike on Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.

In other words, in the “war on terror,” the Iranian leader was fair game.

Last week, Democrats and some Republicans in the House voted to repeal one of two longstanding war authorizations that have helped justify all manner of American military action abroad. It was a challenge not only to President Trump’s ability to take military action against Iran, but also to the thinking in Washington that has sustained the war-fighting since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

For more than 18 years, the war on terrorism — the “forever war” or “endless war,” as many call it — has been used as the basis for an ever-expanding range of military actions: an invasion of Iraq that, by one count, has left nearly 300,000 dead; airstrikes in Afghanistan that have sometimes unintentionally killed scores at wedding parties as well as Qaeda leaders; and now the Suleimani drone strike. Mr. Trump said the general, who had helped arm anti-American militias in the Iraq war, had been plotting new “imminent and sinister attacks.”

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1   Waitup   2020 Feb 3, 8:22am  

The weapons industry has to eat too you know!
2   Shaman   2020 Feb 3, 8:50am  

Yah if we pull out of those countries, we are just begging for another false flag 9/11 style attack.
The MIC won’t let us rest.

Actually, if the problem is that the military industry needs government work, perhaps we could re-direct them to other more productive work. For instance, the newly created Space Force needs like everything! Plenty of room to switch funding from new fighter jets and ballistic missiles to rockets and space ships! If we put the money we waste building a huge bloated military into space exploration, we’d doubtless get a lot more for our money. Instead of creating a moral hazard where our companies were rewarded for WAR, we could reward them for SCIENCE!

Thoughts?
3   MisdemeanorRebel   2020 Feb 3, 9:31am  

But no contracts... companies get $20B for hitting targets like building a 4-person lunar base, cracking the first LH2 from Ice on the Moon.

Otherwise, Boeing and Lockheed will set everything up for nebulous maybes while milking the system for decades without an end result, like SDHLV aka Ares aka SLS
4   Shaman   2020 Feb 3, 9:33am  

Make science, not war!
5   Ceffer   2020 Feb 3, 9:53am  

Yes. I prefer punctuated wars with novel false flags over forever wars based on one.

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