13 ms·

War Without End

93 points by chaseha 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
apo 8y ago
On one matter there can be no argument: The policies that sent these men and women abroad, with their emphasis on military action and their visions of reordering nations and cultures, have not succeeded. It is beyond honest dispute that the wars did not achieve what their organizers promised, no matter the party in power or the generals in command. Astonishingly expensive, strategically incoherent, sold by a shifting slate of senior officers and politicians and editorial-page hawks, the wars have continued in varied forms and under different rationales each and every year since passenger jets struck the World Trade Center in 2001. They continue today without an end in sight, reauthorized in Pentagon budgets almost as if distant war is a presumed government action. Except for the mention of the World Trade Center, this could be a telling of the US involvement in Vietnam. Back then, it was the highly dubious Domino Theory that hawks waved around to browbeat anyone suggesting that such a war was un-winnable, morally indefensible, or just plain hair-brained. Today it's the equally dubious umbrella of Terrorism. Having recently watched Ken Burns' Vietnam documentary, it seems nearly impossible to understand the thinking of the war's supporters. Unless, that is, you replace the word "Communism" with "Terrorism."
- platz 8y ago
  So we should've just let ISIS take over Iraq and Syria ?
  - epicureanideal 8y ago
    ISIS was created by the destabilization of those countries. There are plenty of easy to find links about this, so forgive me for not citing sources. Also, given the nature of the activities, it's difficult to find authoritative sources, but I believe there were some WikiLeaks that had diplomatic cables discussing this. Also if you read Syrian and Russian news, and the Syrians are certainly highly motivated to defeat ISIS as it's trying to take over their country, and the Russians are highly motivated to protect their ally, they both say the US has seemingly been helping ISIS as much as fighting it.
    - platz 8y ago
      Ok, but when are you "starting the clock", if not now, then how long ago? 10 years? 20? 30?
      - boomboomsubban 8y ago
        You don't start the clock anywhere, you should always consider the context that led to things happening.
      - jdietrich 8y ago
        Most of the instability in the Middle East can be traced directly to the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. Our current strategy is like fighting fire with gasoline, because the people we are fighting have a better understanding of history than we do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement
        flukus 8y ago
        It goes back well before then to the Ottoman domination of the region and probably a few thousand years before that. Sykes-Picot was just a change of management. The area has been dominated by outsiders for most of recorded history.
        baud147258 8y ago
        > have a better understanding of history than we do Considering the level of literacy in the Middle-East, I doubt that's true. And I wouldn't call what they know history, but rather propaganda.
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      ...the US has seemingly been helping ISIS as much as fighting it. Yeah it's amazing that after all the "moderate rebels" have left (if they ever existed in the first place), and we've kept flooding the area with weapons and ammunition, ISIS has ended up with lots of USA weapons and ammunition.
  - YZF 8y ago
    The US did let ISIS take over large swaths of Iraq and Syria during Obama's presidency. The lack of action of the US is directly correlated to the rise of ISIS, the prolonged Syrian civil war with its disastrous consequences. It was years and many beheadings before the US decided to do anything about it and really the Russians have done most of the work as well. I really like Obama as a person but his middle east strategy was a disaster. If anything the Russians are proving that you can intervene and be successful if you actually have any sort of coherent strategy and the right allies on the ground. They are the ones bringing an end to this bloody affair (with a lot more blood but still). EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Syrian_Civil_W... So for 3.5 years the US tested the "let's stay out of it and see what happens" strategy (for the most part). What happend? 6 million people internally displaced, 5 million refugees outside Syria, 500,000 people dead. Iran, Russia, Hezbollah, Assad emerge as winners. Well, that really worked out. Not to say they wouldn't have messed it up by intervening but this bad? Hard to imagine. EDIT2: I also understand as a non-american that it's a lot to ask of the US to take care of the world. But if it doesn't, who will? What happens in the rest of the world ends up impacting the entire world, including the US. Maybe I'm too naive though :(
    - freewilly1040 8y ago
      Not caring too much about massacring civilians is also a key part of Russia's recipe in Syria. And furthermore it is a little soon to be declaring victory for them there. What exactly would your strategy have been for a US intervention in Syria? Which local faction would you have supported? Would you have been willing to risk a hot war with Russia and Iran? When get involved in a war you don't get to say at the outset how far you go with it.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - YZF 8y ago
        There was a point, early on, where it was basically Assad against everyone, including half his army (with the other half unsure). At that point a small push would have toppled Assad. I'd have pushed. This was before the foreign fighters, before ISIS (for those most part). Syria was a secular, fairly uniform, fairly peaceful, and fairly organized society. Very different story than Iraq. So that's one option. Another option would have been to threaten Assad and force him to come to some sort of agreement with the demonstrators. This was all before Russia and Iran got involved. Russia got involved when Assad was virtually days away from losing the civil war.
  - toomanybeersies 8y ago
    ISIS didn't exist in 2003 when the USA invaded Iraq. ISIS was formed due to the power vacuum left after the USA withdrew from Iraq, largely by the former officer corps of Saddam's Iraqi Army, who had been left disenfranchised after the policy of de-Ba'athification [1] of the Iraqi government, replacing a vaguely competent government with a completely incompetent government. ISIS was a problem of the USA's own creation, just like the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and the current Iranian regime. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Ba%27athification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Ba%27athification
    - baud147258 8y ago
      Shouldn't the URSS be responsible for the creation of the Taliban? Al-Qaeda was financed by Saudi Arabia and the current Iranina regime is the result of a revolution against the American-supported previous regime. Still the US made all those problems worse, but can't hold the full blame for their creation.
      - toomanybeersies 8y ago
        You're right, it's not solely the fault of the USA. It's a very complicated situation. I was just alluding to the fact that the USA is fighting the Taliban in the 2010s, when in the 1980s they were funding them. Obviously if the USSR didn't invade Afghanistan, we might not be in this situation either.
  - dang 8y ago
    "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Also, the comment takes a significant step further into political flamewar. Can you please not do that on HN?
- mturmon 8y ago
  The parallels are striking. I just finished reading Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie, which is a story of Vietnam told through the lens of the experience of one particular American officer, and later civilian consultant: John Paul Vann. I heartily recommend the book - winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and authored by someone who was on the ground in Vietnam on and off during the war. The book was published in 1988, so any parallels that are evident to Afghanistan and Iraq are not the backseat driving of the author. One parallel, out of many, is that Vann many times lamented the lack of devotion the South Vietnamese Army had to the cause of Vietnamese independence. They largely wanted to avoid actual combat and profit off the American military machine by selling services, re-selling war materiel, accepting bribes for the other side, etc. And Vann said many times in the book that if he himself was a young Vietnamese, he would join the NVA (the North Vietnamese Army). And further, that he admired the grit and devotion the NVA had to the cause of independence. Indeed, one could fill a page of further comments on the parallels: asymmetric tactics, politically powerful generals who lied about prospects for winning, presidents who kicked the can down the road, inability to win "hearts and minds", blaming the press when bad news gets out, ease of bombing versus difficulty of holding territory, "nation-building", installation of American-backed Vietnamese leaders (often emigres) who have no credibility in the country... It is actually quite humbling. We should have known better.
  - baud147258 8y ago
    Who started the Vietnam war?
    - Gibbon1 8y ago
      The French in the mid 19th century.
    - arethuza 8y ago
      I don't think it does have a single simple cause. You could argue: - It was the French colonizing the country and imposing a nasty explotative regime - The French for refusing to decolonize the country post WW2 and fightning (and losing) a war to retain their colony - The US for refusing to help Ho Chi Minh when asked - The US for helping the French - The corrupt and brutal South Vietnamese regime propped up by the US - The brutal North Vietnam regime encouraged by the Soviets and Chinese to fight a proxy war against the West - The US for escalating after the Gulf of Tonkin incident
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  It's fascinating to see this in the NYT, the paper that served as GW Bush's propaganda wing for selling the lies that persuaded the US public to support the second Iraq war.
  - grey-area 8y ago
    Although the nytimes has always served as a mouthpiece for the current administration (this is how they get such good access, this is why they have remained on friendly terms with the Trump admin despite their mainly liberal readership), they have always run the occasional piece of real interest contrary to the official narrative (i.e. real journalism). For example during the Obama administration (which increased the use of drone & missile attacks globally) they posted this inditement of the assassination without trial of a teenage American citizen: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opinion/the-drone-that-killed-my-grandson.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opinion/the-drone-that-ki...
    - boomboomsubban 8y ago
      >For example during the Obama administration (which increased the use of drone & missile attacks globally) they posted this inditement of the assassination without trial of a teenage American citizen: Though notably, they called the act a "targeted killing," as calling it an assassination would be accusing them of war crimes. Even the conclusion only condemns the killing of American's without trial, not bombing suspected terrorists without worrying about nearby people.
- cryptonector 8y ago
  The domino thing wasn't that crazy. China, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia. Then what? Philippines? Thailand? Of course, the right answer was that we couldn't take on all of those burdens, not even one, really, not for long. But in the aftermath of WWII, I think it's not surprising that this wasn't understood.
  - s_m_t 8y ago
    Everyone seems to also forget the then recent success of the Korean war. At risk of confusing what was known then and what is known now, well, look at NK vs SK today. Vietnam under socialist control turned out to be not anywhere as extreme but it would have been hard to guess that right during China's "great leap forward". Of course, things didn't turn out as well for neighboring Cambodia.
    - orbifold 8y ago
      Well the US history in Cambodia is as messy as the one in Vietnam. I don’t recall all the details but the Khmer Rouge was not inevitable without US intervention.
    - eadmund 8y ago
      > Vietnam under socialist control turned out to be not anywhere as extreme Not as extreme as North Korea? No, but even the Soviet Union wasn't as extreme as North Korea. The subjugation of South Vietnam under North Vietnam was pretty brutal though — the Boat People didn't spring from nothing.
      - baud147258 8y ago
        I remember working with a Boat People on my first job. He was a cool guy, but we never talked about Vietnam.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
- alan-crowe 8y ago
  Domino Theory is interesting because it implies a strategic success condition. USA achieve their strategic aim if (a) the Vietnam domino doesn't fall. OR (b) the Vietnam domino falls gently and doesn't knock the next one over. During the course of the Vietnam war, the communism revolution in China lost it mojo, and the impetus to spreading revolution throughout Asia declined. Viewed as a delaying-action/fighting-retreat the US involvement in Vietnam went on long enough to achieve its strategic aim.
  - jacobush 8y ago
    That is the most horrible thing I have read in a long time, and what's so horrible is that it might be some truth to that. Or at least that it could be seen as truthful and right by the people making the decisions at the time.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  My thoughts are that since Vietnam the neocons have continually pushed for one 'do over' after another to prove that 'war works'[1]. So every neocon war is a war unto itself. The worst thing is because the motivation for war is ideological, failure can't be accepted rationally. Some small success is motivation for a bigger war. Failure motivation to double down. [1] As opposed to what every disinterest person knows, that war is terrible, impossible to control and casts long dark shadows into the future.
Rapzid 8y ago
Apologies for the tangent, however I just noticed that up to 150% zoom in Chrome the pictures will maintain their size while the text grows. That's pretty cool. I mean, it seems obvious and I've never had to deal with this(does it rely on em or screen percentage sizing?!), but the way the Times formats the article seems to play particularly well with zoom.
antisthenes 8y ago
If you are a soldier and find other reasons to fight rather than for the person next to you, then I wonder if you're fit to fight at all. You know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, and that's it. That's all it is.
- guelo 8y ago
  Sorry but that makes no sense from a policy point of view.
  - dang 8y ago
    Soldiers don't make policy.
    - Fomite 8y ago
      And yet I find the answer to "Why did you sign up?" to be "To defend the guy next to me!" an odd statement. Should no one be a soldier in peacetime? Because logically, if the hypothetical guy next to you isn't getting hypothetically shot at...
      - dang 8y ago
        It isn't why people sign up; it's why they continue to fight after the reasons they signed up have become destroyed in them.
  - pjmorris 8y ago
    Read up on how the WW2 US Army was recruited, trained, and sent into battle. To the degree possible, squads were kept together from boot camp to build up 'unit cohesion' based on sticking up for each other. Most people don't fight for abstract principles, they fight to stand up for their friends, and/or to not look bad in front of their friends. It's bad policy to ignore that.
- jessaustin 8y ago
eadmund 8y ago
I have a very simple proposal to insure success in any military campaign: just make all tours of duty accompanied tours, i.e. send families along with the servicemembers, from the highest ranks to the lowest, and also make deployment to a combat zone on the order of a decade or two, not a few months or a year. I guarantee that any general staff whose wives & children are in the affected area and who will be there for the next decade will figure out how to pacify the region to the level of a Chicago or Detroit.
- mmjaa 8y ago
  I've got a better idea: 24 Hour War Channel. Every victim gets a time slot.
- trophycase 8y ago
  What if I told you war was not about making peace.
- sorich87 8y ago
  How is that different from colonization?
- ahartmetz 8y ago
  An army of conscripts has a similar effect. When not only the "expendables" of society are sent to fight and die, politicians and voters will think differently about sending the army.
- EliRivers 8y ago
  How about ships and planes? On warships, where will the family live? Will we have extra cabins on them for people's family? The extra load on the ship's sustainability seems like it would significantly increase costs and/or reduce the amount of time between resupplying. I think that's unworkable. Likewise aircraft. Preumably people's family don't get in the plane with the crew, so they stay at the airfield accomodation? That's often quite some way away from the danger, so it seems that it would just be a big expense and inconvenience with no other effect. In these cases and with land forces, of course, the family woudn't want to be there, so they'd have to be rounded up and arrested and effectively imprisoned. What a legal nightmare that is! Need some big changes to the law to make that possible. Wouldn't be surprised if it required changes to the US constitution too. Running prisons of US citizens in Iraq and Afghanistan seems ridiculous. I suppose if the choice was running these prisons or just not invading, maybe the invasion never would have happened. I guarantee that any general staff whose wives & children are in the affected area and who will be there for the next decade will figure out how to pacify the region to the level of a Chicago or Detroit. Do you have any evidence behind your guarantee? You seem to be saying that the general staff just didn't try hard enough, and that they'd try harder if their family was there. I'm sure they would feel more motivated, but being super-motivated isn't exactly a guarantee of success.
mnm1 8y ago
What would "winning" these wars even look like? There is no answer to that because these are not wars that are meant to be won. How can you win something when you don't even know what winning means? These are simulacra wars unlike a war like WW2. Every war America has fought after WW2 has been a simulacra war, not intended to be won but intended to advance random political goals at the expense of our soldiers lives. It's as if America is stuck in a loop, relieving WW2 over and over again but without any actual enemies or wars to fight. Thus we create simulacra wars, wars that shouldn't exist, wars for profit and politics. No one in their right mind could possibly believe these wars are making us safer or whatever the propaganda du jour is. A lot of people just simply can't grasp the idea that they are being duped and lied to by their government, sent to die for nothing. I hope that tuition money is worth the ptsd or the lost limbs because people fighting these wars sure as hell aren't doing anything good for the rest of us Americans. That's why we have the constant "support the troops" bullshit at football games and everywhere else. If there was really a threat, if there was a real necessary war, that bullshit would be unnecessary. Men willingly volunteered to fight in WW2. Today, you couldn't have a draft without mass upheaval, protests, and resistance. I'd rather go to prison, my ultimate nightmare, than fight in these simulacra wars for others' profit. If there was a draft, I'd rather protest by shooting my commanding officers and die than fight in a bullshit war. Clearly though, there won't be a draft but about 1% of the US population is either so desperate for money or delusional that they are willing to fight these staged, unwinnable, simulacra wars. And so on and on they will continue.
- baud147258 8y ago
  Wars are always fought to advance political goals. I agree that in that case, the goals are shitty.
  - mnm1 8y ago
    Yes, I should have specified shitty, niche political goals not in the interest of the country or its people.
b1daly 8y ago
Even though the weird Qanon movement is delusional on the particulars, when it comes to pointing out the obvious betrayal of regular folk by cabals of elites milking the system for their benefit is strikingly on point.
- pavlov 8y ago
  Hitler also had a point that the Treaty of Versailles was unfair to Germany. Neither Qanon nor Hitler deserve to be absolved of their dangerous lies this way.
  - mmjaa 8y ago
    Comparing Qanon to Hitler is such a sad and tragic way to run from the truth.
    - enraged_camel 8y ago
      Bringing up insane conspiracy theories on Hacker News is what is actually sad and tragic.
  - b1daly 8y ago
    I agree on this prosaic point, people/entities should not be absolved of their dangerous lies. What I see as striking about the foundation of Qanon, is that their setup for the conspiracy theory, involves an almost leftist condemnation of the existing power structure in the US. And I agree with the general thrust of their diagnosis. This condemnation of some vary obvious problems in the US is actually kind of rare in the “mainstream media.” It’s strking a chord with many ordinary people. On the particulars, as to who is behind the grand “conspiracy” and who is working for our salvation, they are completely off the rails. I was just surprised that their introductory propaganda didn’t sound as crazy as I expected.
javajosh 8y ago
The underlying problem is comfortable war. It's comfortable for us - we give up nothing, there is no draft, no extra tax, no rationing. Even the soldiers live in relative comfort at base, with air conditioning, plentiful food, computer games, etc. We should choose, as a society, to make war uncomfortable for us. It is the moral choice. We should have a draft, which puts the children of the wealthy and powerful at risk. We should have extra taxes, and ideally there should be rationing. Then see the popularity of diplomacy rise.
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  > We should have a draft, which puts the children of the wealthy and powerful at risk If you're wealthy its super easy to avoid going to war, it doesn't matter which country we talk about. Bribe physician to have some made-up condition (ie Trump), or get drafted but end up doing some safe job on military base back home/outside of any real danger (i think Bush jr). Wars are fought by poor under-educated classes (thats where drafting/hiring is aimed at), smart person sees how pathetic the causes are, how incompetent political and military leadership is, and how stupid it would be to lose life or health for no good reason (and very probably introduce hefty chunk of evil into this world). You can get all the adrenaline thrill doing extreme sports (and much more), you can get paid better elsewhere and it must be kinda hard to strike the patriotic tune when country being attacked by your government is half across the globe, never set a military foot on US soil nor threatened it in any way
skrebbel 8y ago
Typical NYTimes to underline all the poor dead & wounded American soldiers and not a single word about innocent Iraqi and Afghani citizens, let alone the insane wave of refugees across the globe that America's aggression has helped cause.
- mmjaa 8y ago
  Americans are simply not interested in the victims of their wars. It runs counter to every iota of American culture, to acknowledge the failures of their warrior-classes, alas. But, you should know, the article did mention the casualties, at least glibly. "Many more Afghani's have died than were lost in the 9/11 attacks", is the only context the author can find, to appeal to his readers. Its a sad state of affairs when the worlds greatest nation is populated with its worst cowards. Americans should have a War Channel that shows them what their military-industrial-pharmaceutical masters are doing around the world, 24-hours a day. Only then would the honour and pride demanded of American servants of its military be placed in the proper context.
  - skrebbel 8y ago
    > Its a sad state of affairs when the worlds greatest nation is populated with its worst cowards. To be honest I don't see any evidence of Americans being bigger cowards than anybody else. Also eg European media does exactly the same sort of thing. I suspect it's pretty much a global phenomenon. I had just hoped that, of all outlets, NYT could at some point grow past it's navel gazing self, given how relatively balanced their reporting is in many other fields.
    - mmjaa 8y ago
      Nobody wants to be confronted with their nations' real crimes, its true. But Americans have gone far beyond the point where they are able to confront the results of their out-of-control military-industrial-complex. Still, I suppose you're right - its not as bad as the Australians, for example.
  - roenxi 8y ago
imgabe 8y ago
And the same forces, including the NY Times, are currently trying to push us into a war with Russia.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ThinkBeat 8y ago
The endless (and pointless) wars that our soldier are being spent on has a relatively easy solution Reinstate the draft. That might seem counterintuitive since that would give us a lot more soldiers to use, but it would give a lot of families, a lot of Americans real skin in the game. Wasting soldiers is easy as long as most people dont care and dont notice. But when it is your daughter/cousin/ uncle/parent someone you know for a majority of the population it becomes a very serious matter. I say this as an ex-army soldier. I will be honest and say that I didnt enjoy my time in the military very much, and forcing thousands and thousands of youth to go through it means a lot of pain and uncomfortable situation, I think the benefits would outweigh the sacrifices made to make this happen. An alternate plan would it to be mandatory that family members of elected officials to serve in the military and in wars, personally. (Not just sit at a desk in DC pushing buttons) But there is so much corruption in those systems that the children would probably be protected one way or another.
- afsina 8y ago
  What an unbelievably bad idea. Mandatory drafting is involuntary servitude, slavery. How about taking a non interventionist policy?
  - yontherubicon 8y ago
    Citizenship has historically been defined by military service, in that you are not merely subject to the security apparatus of the state, but a part of it. Because you are a part of it, you have a say in it. It was the removal of the draft which necessarily removed the role of service from citizenship. What do people who are not a part of the military care about non-intervention? There is a reason we viliify the draft-dodger who becomes a politician and sends others sons off to war.
    - afsina 8y ago
      Historically most ancient or medieval wars were fought by professional soldiers. Here is a Wikipedia quote "The persistent old belief that peasants and small farmers gathered to form a national army or fyrd is a strange delusion dreamt up by antiquarians in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries to justify universal military conscription" I support Rothbard's view on the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3TY5OhUJhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3TY5OhUJhw
hprotagonist 8y ago
With this anniversary, prospective recruits born after the terrorist attacks of 2001 will be old enough to enlist. All else aside, that just ain’t right.
aestetix 8y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/world/threats-responses-iraqis-us-says-hussein-intensifies-quest-for-bomb-parts.html https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/world/threats-responses-i... https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/world/from-the-editors-the-times-and-iraq.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/world/from-the-editors-th... https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/24/world/threats-responses-intelligence-defectors-bolster-us-case-against-iraq-officials.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/24/world/threats-responses-i... Many more where that came from. There is a case to made that the US wouldn't even be in Iraq if not for the undying support of the Bush administration's agenda, by none other than the New York Times.
exegete 8y ago
Also "National Emergency" without end and without oversight. The National Emergencies Act [0] allows the President to declare emergency powers, but it must be renewed annually, and he must give a report to Congress on how much has spent on the emergency and the status. Bush declared a national emergency after 9/11, and renewed it every year. Obama did the same. Trump the same. No reports to Congress. Congress has never asked for a report. Nothing but "the threat continues". [1] More recently Trump used it as a way to force retired Air Force pilots back into active duty. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Emergencies_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Emergencies_Act [1] https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/14/permanent-emergency-trump-becomes-third-president-renew-extraordinary-post-9-11-powers/661966001/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/14/perm...

93 points by chaseha 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

apo 8y ago

On one matter there can be no argument: The policies that sent these men and women abroad, with their emphasis on military action and their visions of reordering nations and cultures, have not succeeded. It is beyond honest dispute that the wars did not achieve what their organizers promised, no matter the party in power or the generals in command. Astonishingly expensive, strategically incoherent, sold by a shifting slate of senior officers and politicians and editorial-page hawks, the wars have continued in varied forms and under different rationales each and every year since passenger jets struck the World Trade Center in 2001. They continue today without an end in sight, reauthorized in Pentagon budgets almost as if distant war is a presumed government action. Except for the mention of the World Trade Center, this could be a telling of the US involvement in Vietnam. Back then, it was the highly dubious Domino Theory that hawks waved around to browbeat anyone suggesting that such a war was un-winnable, morally indefensible, or just plain hair-brained. Today it's the equally dubious umbrella of Terrorism. Having recently watched Ken Burns' Vietnam documentary, it seems nearly impossible to understand the thinking of the war's supporters. Unless, that is, you replace the word "Communism" with "Terrorism."

platz 8y ago
So we should've just let ISIS take over Iraq and Syria ?
- epicureanideal 8y ago
  ISIS was created by the destabilization of those countries. There are plenty of easy to find links about this, so forgive me for not citing sources. Also, given the nature of the activities, it's difficult to find authoritative sources, but I believe there were some WikiLeaks that had diplomatic cables discussing this. Also if you read Syrian and Russian news, and the Syrians are certainly highly motivated to defeat ISIS as it's trying to take over their country, and the Russians are highly motivated to protect their ally, they both say the US has seemingly been helping ISIS as much as fighting it.
  - platz 8y ago
    Ok, but when are you "starting the clock", if not now, then how long ago? 10 years? 20? 30?
    - boomboomsubban 8y ago
      You don't start the clock anywhere, you should always consider the context that led to things happening.
    - jdietrich 8y ago
      Most of the instability in the Middle East can be traced directly to the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. Our current strategy is like fighting fire with gasoline, because the people we are fighting have a better understanding of history than we do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement
      - flukus 8y ago
        It goes back well before then to the Ottoman domination of the region and probably a few thousand years before that. Sykes-Picot was just a change of management. The area has been dominated by outsiders for most of recorded history.
      - baud147258 8y ago
        > have a better understanding of history than we do Considering the level of literacy in the Middle-East, I doubt that's true. And I wouldn't call what they know history, but rather propaganda.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    ...the US has seemingly been helping ISIS as much as fighting it. Yeah it's amazing that after all the "moderate rebels" have left (if they ever existed in the first place), and we've kept flooding the area with weapons and ammunition, ISIS has ended up with lots of USA weapons and ammunition.
- YZF 8y ago
  The US did let ISIS take over large swaths of Iraq and Syria during Obama's presidency. The lack of action of the US is directly correlated to the rise of ISIS, the prolonged Syrian civil war with its disastrous consequences. It was years and many beheadings before the US decided to do anything about it and really the Russians have done most of the work as well. I really like Obama as a person but his middle east strategy was a disaster. If anything the Russians are proving that you can intervene and be successful if you actually have any sort of coherent strategy and the right allies on the ground. They are the ones bringing an end to this bloody affair (with a lot more blood but still). EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Syrian_Civil_W... So for 3.5 years the US tested the "let's stay out of it and see what happens" strategy (for the most part). What happend? 6 million people internally displaced, 5 million refugees outside Syria, 500,000 people dead. Iran, Russia, Hezbollah, Assad emerge as winners. Well, that really worked out. Not to say they wouldn't have messed it up by intervening but this bad? Hard to imagine. EDIT2: I also understand as a non-american that it's a lot to ask of the US to take care of the world. But if it doesn't, who will? What happens in the rest of the world ends up impacting the entire world, including the US. Maybe I'm too naive though :(
  - freewilly1040 8y ago
    Not caring too much about massacring civilians is also a key part of Russia's recipe in Syria. And furthermore it is a little soon to be declaring victory for them there. What exactly would your strategy have been for a US intervention in Syria? Which local faction would you have supported? Would you have been willing to risk a hot war with Russia and Iran? When get involved in a war you don't get to say at the outset how far you go with it.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - YZF 8y ago
      There was a point, early on, where it was basically Assad against everyone, including half his army (with the other half unsure). At that point a small push would have toppled Assad. I'd have pushed. This was before the foreign fighters, before ISIS (for those most part). Syria was a secular, fairly uniform, fairly peaceful, and fairly organized society. Very different story than Iraq. So that's one option. Another option would have been to threaten Assad and force him to come to some sort of agreement with the demonstrators. This was all before Russia and Iran got involved. Russia got involved when Assad was virtually days away from losing the civil war.
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  ISIS didn't exist in 2003 when the USA invaded Iraq. ISIS was formed due to the power vacuum left after the USA withdrew from Iraq, largely by the former officer corps of Saddam's Iraqi Army, who had been left disenfranchised after the policy of de-Ba'athification [1] of the Iraqi government, replacing a vaguely competent government with a completely incompetent government. ISIS was a problem of the USA's own creation, just like the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and the current Iranian regime. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Ba%27athification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Ba%27athification
  - baud147258 8y ago
    Shouldn't the URSS be responsible for the creation of the Taliban? Al-Qaeda was financed by Saudi Arabia and the current Iranina regime is the result of a revolution against the American-supported previous regime. Still the US made all those problems worse, but can't hold the full blame for their creation.
    - toomanybeersies 8y ago
      You're right, it's not solely the fault of the USA. It's a very complicated situation. I was just alluding to the fact that the USA is fighting the Taliban in the 2010s, when in the 1980s they were funding them. Obviously if the USSR didn't invade Afghanistan, we might not be in this situation either.
- dang 8y ago
  "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Also, the comment takes a significant step further into political flamewar. Can you please not do that on HN?
mturmon 8y ago
The parallels are striking. I just finished reading Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie, which is a story of Vietnam told through the lens of the experience of one particular American officer, and later civilian consultant: John Paul Vann. I heartily recommend the book - winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and authored by someone who was on the ground in Vietnam on and off during the war. The book was published in 1988, so any parallels that are evident to Afghanistan and Iraq are not the backseat driving of the author. One parallel, out of many, is that Vann many times lamented the lack of devotion the South Vietnamese Army had to the cause of Vietnamese independence. They largely wanted to avoid actual combat and profit off the American military machine by selling services, re-selling war materiel, accepting bribes for the other side, etc. And Vann said many times in the book that if he himself was a young Vietnamese, he would join the NVA (the North Vietnamese Army). And further, that he admired the grit and devotion the NVA had to the cause of independence. Indeed, one could fill a page of further comments on the parallels: asymmetric tactics, politically powerful generals who lied about prospects for winning, presidents who kicked the can down the road, inability to win "hearts and minds", blaming the press when bad news gets out, ease of bombing versus difficulty of holding territory, "nation-building", installation of American-backed Vietnamese leaders (often emigres) who have no credibility in the country... It is actually quite humbling. We should have known better.
- baud147258 8y ago
  Who started the Vietnam war?
  - Gibbon1 8y ago
    The French in the mid 19th century.
  - arethuza 8y ago
    I don't think it does have a single simple cause. You could argue: - It was the French colonizing the country and imposing a nasty explotative regime - The French for refusing to decolonize the country post WW2 and fightning (and losing) a war to retain their colony - The US for refusing to help Ho Chi Minh when asked - The US for helping the French - The corrupt and brutal South Vietnamese regime propped up by the US - The brutal North Vietnam regime encouraged by the Soviets and Chinese to fight a proxy war against the West - The US for escalating after the Gulf of Tonkin incident
fjsolwmv 8y ago
It's fascinating to see this in the NYT, the paper that served as GW Bush's propaganda wing for selling the lies that persuaded the US public to support the second Iraq war.
- grey-area 8y ago
  Although the nytimes has always served as a mouthpiece for the current administration (this is how they get such good access, this is why they have remained on friendly terms with the Trump admin despite their mainly liberal readership), they have always run the occasional piece of real interest contrary to the official narrative (i.e. real journalism). For example during the Obama administration (which increased the use of drone & missile attacks globally) they posted this inditement of the assassination without trial of a teenage American citizen: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opinion/the-drone-that-killed-my-grandson.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opinion/the-drone-that-ki...
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago
    >For example during the Obama administration (which increased the use of drone & missile attacks globally) they posted this inditement of the assassination without trial of a teenage American citizen: Though notably, they called the act a "targeted killing," as calling it an assassination would be accusing them of war crimes. Even the conclusion only condemns the killing of American's without trial, not bombing suspected terrorists without worrying about nearby people.
cryptonector 8y ago
The domino thing wasn't that crazy. China, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia. Then what? Philippines? Thailand? Of course, the right answer was that we couldn't take on all of those burdens, not even one, really, not for long. But in the aftermath of WWII, I think it's not surprising that this wasn't understood.
- s_m_t 8y ago
  Everyone seems to also forget the then recent success of the Korean war. At risk of confusing what was known then and what is known now, well, look at NK vs SK today. Vietnam under socialist control turned out to be not anywhere as extreme but it would have been hard to guess that right during China's "great leap forward". Of course, things didn't turn out as well for neighboring Cambodia.
  - orbifold 8y ago
    Well the US history in Cambodia is as messy as the one in Vietnam. I don’t recall all the details but the Khmer Rouge was not inevitable without US intervention.
  - eadmund 8y ago
    > Vietnam under socialist control turned out to be not anywhere as extreme Not as extreme as North Korea? No, but even the Soviet Union wasn't as extreme as North Korea. The subjugation of South Vietnam under North Vietnam was pretty brutal though — the Boat People didn't spring from nothing.
    - baud147258 8y ago
      I remember working with a Boat People on my first job. He was a cool guy, but we never talked about Vietnam.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
alan-crowe 8y ago
Domino Theory is interesting because it implies a strategic success condition. USA achieve their strategic aim if (a) the Vietnam domino doesn't fall. OR (b) the Vietnam domino falls gently and doesn't knock the next one over. During the course of the Vietnam war, the communism revolution in China lost it mojo, and the impetus to spreading revolution throughout Asia declined. Viewed as a delaying-action/fighting-retreat the US involvement in Vietnam went on long enough to achieve its strategic aim.
- jacobush 8y ago
  That is the most horrible thing I have read in a long time, and what's so horrible is that it might be some truth to that. Or at least that it could be seen as truthful and right by the people making the decisions at the time.
Gibbon1 8y ago
My thoughts are that since Vietnam the neocons have continually pushed for one 'do over' after another to prove that 'war works'[1]. So every neocon war is a war unto itself. The worst thing is because the motivation for war is ideological, failure can't be accepted rationally. Some small success is motivation for a bigger war. Failure motivation to double down. [1] As opposed to what every disinterest person knows, that war is terrible, impossible to control and casts long dark shadows into the future.

Rapzid 8y ago

Apologies for the tangent, however I just noticed that up to 150% zoom in Chrome the pictures will maintain their size while the text grows. That's pretty cool. I mean, it seems obvious and I've never had to deal with this(does it rely on em or screen percentage sizing?!), but the way the Times formats the article seems to play particularly well with zoom.

antisthenes 8y ago

If you are a soldier and find other reasons to fight rather than for the person next to you, then I wonder if you're fit to fight at all. You know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, and that's it. That's all it is.

guelo 8y ago
Sorry but that makes no sense from a policy point of view.
- dang 8y ago
  Soldiers don't make policy.
  - Fomite 8y ago
    And yet I find the answer to "Why did you sign up?" to be "To defend the guy next to me!" an odd statement. Should no one be a soldier in peacetime? Because logically, if the hypothetical guy next to you isn't getting hypothetically shot at...
    - dang 8y ago
      It isn't why people sign up; it's why they continue to fight after the reasons they signed up have become destroyed in them.
- pjmorris 8y ago
  Read up on how the WW2 US Army was recruited, trained, and sent into battle. To the degree possible, squads were kept together from boot camp to build up 'unit cohesion' based on sticking up for each other. Most people don't fight for abstract principles, they fight to stand up for their friends, and/or to not look bad in front of their friends. It's bad policy to ignore that.
jessaustin 8y ago

eadmund 8y ago

I have a very simple proposal to insure success in any military campaign: just make all tours of duty accompanied tours, i.e. send families along with the servicemembers, from the highest ranks to the lowest, and also make deployment to a combat zone on the order of a decade or two, not a few months or a year. I guarantee that any general staff whose wives & children are in the affected area and who will be there for the next decade will figure out how to pacify the region to the level of a Chicago or Detroit.

mmjaa 8y ago
I've got a better idea: 24 Hour War Channel. Every victim gets a time slot.
trophycase 8y ago
What if I told you war was not about making peace.
sorich87 8y ago
How is that different from colonization?
ahartmetz 8y ago
An army of conscripts has a similar effect. When not only the "expendables" of society are sent to fight and die, politicians and voters will think differently about sending the army.
EliRivers 8y ago
How about ships and planes? On warships, where will the family live? Will we have extra cabins on them for people's family? The extra load on the ship's sustainability seems like it would significantly increase costs and/or reduce the amount of time between resupplying. I think that's unworkable. Likewise aircraft. Preumably people's family don't get in the plane with the crew, so they stay at the airfield accomodation? That's often quite some way away from the danger, so it seems that it would just be a big expense and inconvenience with no other effect. In these cases and with land forces, of course, the family woudn't want to be there, so they'd have to be rounded up and arrested and effectively imprisoned. What a legal nightmare that is! Need some big changes to the law to make that possible. Wouldn't be surprised if it required changes to the US constitution too. Running prisons of US citizens in Iraq and Afghanistan seems ridiculous. I suppose if the choice was running these prisons or just not invading, maybe the invasion never would have happened. I guarantee that any general staff whose wives & children are in the affected area and who will be there for the next decade will figure out how to pacify the region to the level of a Chicago or Detroit. Do you have any evidence behind your guarantee? You seem to be saying that the general staff just didn't try hard enough, and that they'd try harder if their family was there. I'm sure they would feel more motivated, but being super-motivated isn't exactly a guarantee of success.

mnm1 8y ago

What would "winning" these wars even look like? There is no answer to that because these are not wars that are meant to be won. How can you win something when you don't even know what winning means? These are simulacra wars unlike a war like WW2. Every war America has fought after WW2 has been a simulacra war, not intended to be won but intended to advance random political goals at the expense of our soldiers lives. It's as if America is stuck in a loop, relieving WW2 over and over again but without any actual enemies or wars to fight. Thus we create simulacra wars, wars that shouldn't exist, wars for profit and politics. No one in their right mind could possibly believe these wars are making us safer or whatever the propaganda du jour is. A lot of people just simply can't grasp the idea that they are being duped and lied to by their government, sent to die for nothing. I hope that tuition money is worth the ptsd or the lost limbs because people fighting these wars sure as hell aren't doing anything good for the rest of us Americans. That's why we have the constant "support the troops" bullshit at football games and everywhere else. If there was really a threat, if there was a real necessary war, that bullshit would be unnecessary. Men willingly volunteered to fight in WW2. Today, you couldn't have a draft without mass upheaval, protests, and resistance. I'd rather go to prison, my ultimate nightmare, than fight in these simulacra wars for others' profit. If there was a draft, I'd rather protest by shooting my commanding officers and die than fight in a bullshit war. Clearly though, there won't be a draft but about 1% of the US population is either so desperate for money or delusional that they are willing to fight these staged, unwinnable, simulacra wars. And so on and on they will continue.

baud147258 8y ago
Wars are always fought to advance political goals. I agree that in that case, the goals are shitty.
- mnm1 8y ago
  Yes, I should have specified shitty, niche political goals not in the interest of the country or its people.

b1daly 8y ago

Even though the weird Qanon movement is delusional on the particulars, when it comes to pointing out the obvious betrayal of regular folk by cabals of elites milking the system for their benefit is strikingly on point.

pavlov 8y ago
Hitler also had a point that the Treaty of Versailles was unfair to Germany. Neither Qanon nor Hitler deserve to be absolved of their dangerous lies this way.
- mmjaa 8y ago
  Comparing Qanon to Hitler is such a sad and tragic way to run from the truth.
  - enraged_camel 8y ago
    Bringing up insane conspiracy theories on Hacker News is what is actually sad and tragic.
- b1daly 8y ago
  I agree on this prosaic point, people/entities should not be absolved of their dangerous lies. What I see as striking about the foundation of Qanon, is that their setup for the conspiracy theory, involves an almost leftist condemnation of the existing power structure in the US. And I agree with the general thrust of their diagnosis. This condemnation of some vary obvious problems in the US is actually kind of rare in the “mainstream media.” It’s strking a chord with many ordinary people. On the particulars, as to who is behind the grand “conspiracy” and who is working for our salvation, they are completely off the rails. I was just surprised that their introductory propaganda didn’t sound as crazy as I expected.

javajosh 8y ago

The underlying problem is comfortable war. It's comfortable for us - we give up nothing, there is no draft, no extra tax, no rationing. Even the soldiers live in relative comfort at base, with air conditioning, plentiful food, computer games, etc. We should choose, as a society, to make war uncomfortable for us. It is the moral choice. We should have a draft, which puts the children of the wealthy and powerful at risk. We should have extra taxes, and ideally there should be rationing. Then see the popularity of diplomacy rise.

saiya-jin 8y ago
> We should have a draft, which puts the children of the wealthy and powerful at risk If you're wealthy its super easy to avoid going to war, it doesn't matter which country we talk about. Bribe physician to have some made-up condition (ie Trump), or get drafted but end up doing some safe job on military base back home/outside of any real danger (i think Bush jr). Wars are fought by poor under-educated classes (thats where drafting/hiring is aimed at), smart person sees how pathetic the causes are, how incompetent political and military leadership is, and how stupid it would be to lose life or health for no good reason (and very probably introduce hefty chunk of evil into this world). You can get all the adrenaline thrill doing extreme sports (and much more), you can get paid better elsewhere and it must be kinda hard to strike the patriotic tune when country being attacked by your government is half across the globe, never set a military foot on US soil nor threatened it in any way

skrebbel 8y ago

Typical NYTimes to underline all the poor dead & wounded American soldiers and not a single word about innocent Iraqi and Afghani citizens, let alone the insane wave of refugees across the globe that America's aggression has helped cause.

mmjaa 8y ago
Americans are simply not interested in the victims of their wars. It runs counter to every iota of American culture, to acknowledge the failures of their warrior-classes, alas. But, you should know, the article did mention the casualties, at least glibly. "Many more Afghani's have died than were lost in the 9/11 attacks", is the only context the author can find, to appeal to his readers. Its a sad state of affairs when the worlds greatest nation is populated with its worst cowards. Americans should have a War Channel that shows them what their military-industrial-pharmaceutical masters are doing around the world, 24-hours a day. Only then would the honour and pride demanded of American servants of its military be placed in the proper context.
- skrebbel 8y ago
  > Its a sad state of affairs when the worlds greatest nation is populated with its worst cowards. To be honest I don't see any evidence of Americans being bigger cowards than anybody else. Also eg European media does exactly the same sort of thing. I suspect it's pretty much a global phenomenon. I had just hoped that, of all outlets, NYT could at some point grow past it's navel gazing self, given how relatively balanced their reporting is in many other fields.
  - mmjaa 8y ago
    Nobody wants to be confronted with their nations' real crimes, its true. But Americans have gone far beyond the point where they are able to confront the results of their out-of-control military-industrial-complex. Still, I suppose you're right - its not as bad as the Australians, for example.
- roenxi 8y ago

imgabe 8y ago

And the same forces, including the NY Times, are currently trying to push us into a war with Russia.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ThinkBeat 8y ago

The endless (and pointless) wars that our soldier are being spent on has a relatively easy solution Reinstate the draft. That might seem counterintuitive since that would give us a lot more soldiers to use, but it would give a lot of families, a lot of Americans real skin in the game. Wasting soldiers is easy as long as most people dont care and dont notice. But when it is your daughter/cousin/ uncle/parent someone you know for a majority of the population it becomes a very serious matter. I say this as an ex-army soldier. I will be honest and say that I didnt enjoy my time in the military very much, and forcing thousands and thousands of youth to go through it means a lot of pain and uncomfortable situation, I think the benefits would outweigh the sacrifices made to make this happen. An alternate plan would it to be mandatory that family members of elected officials to serve in the military and in wars, personally. (Not just sit at a desk in DC pushing buttons) But there is so much corruption in those systems that the children would probably be protected one way or another.

afsina 8y ago
What an unbelievably bad idea. Mandatory drafting is involuntary servitude, slavery. How about taking a non interventionist policy?
- yontherubicon 8y ago
  Citizenship has historically been defined by military service, in that you are not merely subject to the security apparatus of the state, but a part of it. Because you are a part of it, you have a say in it. It was the removal of the draft which necessarily removed the role of service from citizenship. What do people who are not a part of the military care about non-intervention? There is a reason we viliify the draft-dodger who becomes a politician and sends others sons off to war.
  - afsina 8y ago
    Historically most ancient or medieval wars were fought by professional soldiers. Here is a Wikipedia quote "The persistent old belief that peasants and small farmers gathered to form a national army or fyrd is a strange delusion dreamt up by antiquarians in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries to justify universal military conscription" I support Rothbard's view on the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3TY5OhUJhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3TY5OhUJhw

hprotagonist 8y ago

With this anniversary, prospective recruits born after the terrorist attacks of 2001 will be old enough to enlist. All else aside, that just ain’t right.

aestetix 8y ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/world/threats-responses-iraqis-us-says-hussein-intensifies-quest-for-bomb-parts.html https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/world/threats-responses-i... https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/world/from-the-editors-the-times-and-iraq.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/world/from-the-editors-th... https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/24/world/threats-responses-intelligence-defectors-bolster-us-case-against-iraq-officials.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/24/world/threats-responses-i... Many more where that came from. There is a case to made that the US wouldn't even be in Iraq if not for the undying support of the Bush administration's agenda, by none other than the New York Times.

exegete 8y ago

Also "National Emergency" without end and without oversight. The National Emergencies Act [0] allows the President to declare emergency powers, but it must be renewed annually, and he must give a report to Congress on how much has spent on the emergency and the status. Bush declared a national emergency after 9/11, and renewed it every year. Obama did the same. Trump the same. No reports to Congress. Congress has never asked for a report. Nothing but "the threat continues". [1] More recently Trump used it as a way to force retired Air Force pilots back into active duty. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Emergencies_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Emergencies_Act [1] https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/14/permanent-emergency-trump-becomes-third-president-renew-extraordinary-post-9-11-powers/661966001/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/14/perm...