Western vision of military invasion an inversion of sanity

[unhappycamper]

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/western-vision-of-military-invasion-an-inversion-of-sanity-20140114-30syu.html



$2,000,000 'worth' of MRAPS, soon to become scrap

Western vision of military invasion an inversion of sanity
Alan Stephens
January 15, 2014


Albert Einstein once observed that doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result is a definition of folly. As the West's invasion of Afghanistan approaches its bitter conclusion, Einstein might well have been referring to our preferred military strategy for the past half-century.

Four times American-led armies have invaded and occupied foreign countries, and four times the model has failed, in Vietnam, Iraq (twice) and Afghanistan. Given that evidence, it seems that Western military staffs and academies have been fortresses of obsolete ideas rather than agents of strategic innovation.

Presumably, once the dust has settled after Afghanistan, Australia's political and military leaders will review our national defence strategy. Former US defence secretary Robert Gates may have inadvertently identified the essential start-point for any such review in his new book, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, in which he notes disapprovingly that President Barack Obama ''came to distrust'' his army, its commanders, and its strategy.

Notwithstanding Gates' censure, Obama seems to have a point: Afghanistan has, after all, been a political, economic, military, and social disaster.

[bemildred]

1. That's going to smart.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[William deB. Mills]

2. Wars for Profit Are Not Patriotic

It is very difficult to distinguish stupidity on the part of politicians who know nothing about the world from intentional exploitation of warfare for its enormous profitability for the elite. Imagine a system in which all the CEOs of corporations that profit from war had to work at minimum wage until the war ended and in which all politicians who voted for war were banned for life from further government service for having failed to prevent the war. Then perhaps we could separate wars of national necessity (haven't detected one in half a century) from wars for profit. Iraq was enormously profitable for certain folks, as everyone no doubt is aware. Anyone know who is making good money off Afghanistan?

Global Research - http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-war-is-worth-waging-afghanistan-s-vast-reserves-of-minerals-and-natural-gas/19769 - has done a review of the lure of Afghanistan, but I am thinking more of individuals who enriched themselves directly from the fighting.