Since 2001, every year end in the United States has been a nation at war, with military forces occupying overseas territory. That’s just as true this year, despite the rhetoric to the contrary.
President Obama has sought to portray the Afghan War as “over” this month, and what’s more a “success” after 13+ years of occupation and over $1 trillion, by conservative estimates, spent.
Yet all that really happened in Afghanistan was a transition from the old, NATO-led occupation to a new, more US-dominated one. The US has actually increased the number of troops it will leave in the country in 2015, and combat will continue.
Though how long the Afghan War will continue beyond 2015 is still a matter of speculation, the US has an agreement with the Afghanistan government to leave troops there through 2024 and beyond.
In the meantime, 2014 saw the resumption of the Iraq War, with roughly 3,000 US ground troops in the nation or en-route for a massive air war against ISIS, with large numbers of vehicles being built up in Kuwait for the eventual ground war.
With the Afghan War still open-ended, and the new ISIS war expanding in both Iraq and Syria, with major escalations to come, the appearance is of the conflicts in general speeding up, not slowing down.
That the administration seems so determined to present America as entering a post-war phase, even with multiple wars ongoing, suggests public war fatigue is finally catching up with officials, but instead of doing the sensible thing and ending the wars, they’re going to try to sell the fiction of the wars being over instead.
A Happy and Safe New Year to Antiwar.com's contributors. It's refreshing
reading comments based on substance instead of 'Red State, Blue State'
childish partisan politics. Dems and Repugs are two sides of the same
coin. Our (true) masters are the 1% controlling Big Business, Wall Street,
World Bank, IMF, and MIC. Neither one of them gives a damn about (us)
who work for a living. Their goal is to grab for themselves what's left
of the natural resources on this planet.
"…instead of doing the sensible thing and ending the wars, they’re going to try to sell the fiction of the wars being over instead."
And my bet is that the USG and their sycophants and other assorted poodles will have no problem at all selling it to the American people. The American people may be war weary but they're too lazy to get up out of their comfy chairs to do anything about it. Hell, the majority of them don't even bother voting and by not doing so continue the string of obscenely unqualified people being elected to represent our interests, which they most certainly don't.
Obama deserves another Nobel Peace Prize for convincing everyone on Der Homeland Front that the US is not at war, when in fact the quite covert opposite is true. Libya, Syria, the Ukraine didn't just decide to up and destabilize themselves, and chances are they would be stable, had not the US/UK/EU fanned the flames as usual.
The way Libya got screwed and now no one talks about it should be a good indicator of how concerned they are about the the well-being of the people we "liberate" after the fact.
Great stock photo of Obama Jason. I almost thought it was the real thing!
When Obama was given the peace prize, he did nothing to deserve it. He, George W Bush, Tony Blair etc should get war prizes and be locked up at the ICC.
Shock, dismay, disbelief, and down right outrageous. Hear what a General had to say before we went into our 'NON-DECLARED' wars and never ending wars!
General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned – Seven Countries In Five Years
"This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!"
General Wesley Clark Asked About 7 Country War Plan
(it's the poppies, stupid)
generally people only talk about their successes