Lucille
08-27-2013, 03:53 PM
Korea was a failure too.
Assad: Failure Awaits the USA
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-08-27/assad-failure-awaits-usa
Syrian President Bachar al-Assad has warned President Obama not to take military action against his country since: “Failure awaits the United States as in all previous wars it has unleashed, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day”. Assad’s declaration will probably be more damaging to the over-inflated ego of the world’s policeman that believes that it has to export democracy to countries around the world. At least that’s the official version as to the invasion of countries. The non-official version is much more down-to-earth and crossing the line is far more mercantile. But is Assad right? Does failure await the USA? It all depends from which angle you look at it. Has the USA lost every single war since the Vietnam War?
It all depends on where you decide to place ‘lost’ along the scale, doesn’t it?
Every one of the wars was a loss in terms of military personnel, for sure. Every one of the wars was a loss in terms of money that was wasted trying to gain control of countries, either to set up democracy or to eradicate Communism or the political regime there and to set up a capitalist economy. Every one of the wars was a failure in some sense of the term; so technically-speaking Assad is correct. But, even more so today, the Obama administration will have to think very carefully about undertaking an invasion and launching an attack on Syria today. Assad will more than likely respond to that and it won’t be with a rose sticking out of the end of his rifle. They don’t do flower power in Syria it seems.
[...]
The USA has attempted many different types of style of warfare of the past decades since the Vietnam War. We have witnessed the no-holds barred and gloves-off fights till the bitter end in countries like Afghanistan with small skirmishes and flirting with the enemy all over the Middle East. But, all of the wars that the US has fought since the date that Assad mentions are indeed failures because they ended in stalematepositions. Two small tentative steps forward were made and then a couple back. The US is preparing to pull out of Afghanistan. For more than a decade they have struggled to bring so-called democracy to a country (despite the fact that the US is undemocratic itself as revealed by the recent NSA scandals). But, nothing has occurred of any democratic nature. Al-Qaeda still exists and has not been eradicated despite President Bush’s promises to destroy the ‘rogue states’ and pull down the great ‘axis of evil’. The only result was that for decades the terrorist groups have retrenched themselves in secluded places on the outskirts of the country and in the mountainous terrain that is impossible for the USA to gain control of. Women are still veiled in all but the capital. Women still ‘prefer’ to wear the veil where fundamentalists control the area. That looks like failure, doesn’t it?
Troops will leave Afghanistan in 2014.
President Obama sent 17, 000 extra troops in 2009 to try to stabilize the impossible situation in Afghanistan.
It had little effect except boosting the 36, 000 troops stationed there by 50%.
The drawdown began on 31st July 2011 and 650 troops were pulled out of the country and returned home to the USA.
But, Assad failed himself in seeing the gains that were made by the US in going to war somewhere in the world.
Private companies have made billions from the US interventions.
One such example: Halliburton’s KBR Inc. gained $17.2 billion in Iraq from revenue made there between 2003and 2006 alone.
That represented 20% of their total revenue for 2006.
But, we were told by the then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz in 2003 that Iraq was a country “that can really finance its own construction, and relatively soon”. The definition of relatively soon leaves a lot to be desired.
In one decade alone, the US government awarded Halliburton (once run by Dick Cheney, vice-president to G.W. Bush) a total of $39.5 billion in contracts.
There were more private companies and contractors in Iraq than in any other war in the history of the US to date and there were sometimes more of those people than the military personnel fighting the damn war.
Taxpayers’ money financed yet again in a complex and insidious manner the private companies of the cronies that had chums in high places.
The Commission on Wartime Contracting in 2011 estimated that in Iraq and Afghanistan $60 billion had been wasted by or defrauded from the US administration.
That works out to $12 million every day.
The last troops pulled out of Iraq in 2011.
But, there are still 14, 000 contractors there reaping the benefits, along with protection afforded by 5, 500 security personnel.
Assad may well be right when he says that the US has lost every single war since Vietnam.
But, there are not only losers in those wars. The winners will be the private companies that will again increase in number and that will once again be granted federal contracts to dip deeply into the riches as the country focuses on the boys on the front that are fighting for such ‘noble causes’ as humanitarian aid and people’s lives. The US will reap the benefits from such an invasion. There is just the waiting around for the right moment, making it look as if the United Nations Security Council still actually does have an ounce of authority left in the world today. We all know that it doesn’t. Antiquated and an old man in carpet slippers from a bygone era catapulted into modernity that just can’t keep up with the pace these days.
Syria- Chemical Weapons - Assad or Washington?
It won’t just be Obama, but he’ll simply be another in a long line of successive administrators that will enter a war for official and unofficial reasons. But, the UK-based defense contractor Britam was hacked months again now revealing that the red line needed to be crossed. An email revealed: “Phil We’ve got a new offer. It’s about Syria again. Qataris propose an attractive deal and swear that the idea is approved by Washington. We’ll have to deliver a CW to Homs, a Soviet origin g-shell from Libya similar to those that Assad should have. They want us to deploy our Ukrainian personnel that should speak Russian and make a video record. Frankly, I don’t think it’s a good idea but the sums proposed are enormous. Your opinion?”
‘CW’ stands for chemical weapons. Exposure of the truth or intoxication? Who knows? Of course the email could have been created to discredit the US authorities and the West. But, the email does emanate from the IP range of Britam, and according to experts, that means that it is much harder to do so, but not impossible. Since 2009 Halliburton has been the parent company of Britam.
Was the plan ‘Washington approved’? If it is true, then it makes a shoddy hash of principles. Waving the false flagwould mean that the whole system from A to Z is corrupt. The US, the West, NATO, the UN, the Security Council. Not one of them to save any of the others. Those people had principles instilled in them, they may have just chosen not to abide by them. But, as Gandhi once stated on the roots of violence in the world; it only stems from: “Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles”.
Wealth doesn’t necessarily need work, just warfare it would seem, and some people’s conscience went long ago along with morality. Politics never had principles, did it?
Assad: Failure Awaits the USA
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-08-27/assad-failure-awaits-usa
Syrian President Bachar al-Assad has warned President Obama not to take military action against his country since: “Failure awaits the United States as in all previous wars it has unleashed, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day”. Assad’s declaration will probably be more damaging to the over-inflated ego of the world’s policeman that believes that it has to export democracy to countries around the world. At least that’s the official version as to the invasion of countries. The non-official version is much more down-to-earth and crossing the line is far more mercantile. But is Assad right? Does failure await the USA? It all depends from which angle you look at it. Has the USA lost every single war since the Vietnam War?
It all depends on where you decide to place ‘lost’ along the scale, doesn’t it?
Every one of the wars was a loss in terms of military personnel, for sure. Every one of the wars was a loss in terms of money that was wasted trying to gain control of countries, either to set up democracy or to eradicate Communism or the political regime there and to set up a capitalist economy. Every one of the wars was a failure in some sense of the term; so technically-speaking Assad is correct. But, even more so today, the Obama administration will have to think very carefully about undertaking an invasion and launching an attack on Syria today. Assad will more than likely respond to that and it won’t be with a rose sticking out of the end of his rifle. They don’t do flower power in Syria it seems.
[...]
The USA has attempted many different types of style of warfare of the past decades since the Vietnam War. We have witnessed the no-holds barred and gloves-off fights till the bitter end in countries like Afghanistan with small skirmishes and flirting with the enemy all over the Middle East. But, all of the wars that the US has fought since the date that Assad mentions are indeed failures because they ended in stalematepositions. Two small tentative steps forward were made and then a couple back. The US is preparing to pull out of Afghanistan. For more than a decade they have struggled to bring so-called democracy to a country (despite the fact that the US is undemocratic itself as revealed by the recent NSA scandals). But, nothing has occurred of any democratic nature. Al-Qaeda still exists and has not been eradicated despite President Bush’s promises to destroy the ‘rogue states’ and pull down the great ‘axis of evil’. The only result was that for decades the terrorist groups have retrenched themselves in secluded places on the outskirts of the country and in the mountainous terrain that is impossible for the USA to gain control of. Women are still veiled in all but the capital. Women still ‘prefer’ to wear the veil where fundamentalists control the area. That looks like failure, doesn’t it?
Troops will leave Afghanistan in 2014.
President Obama sent 17, 000 extra troops in 2009 to try to stabilize the impossible situation in Afghanistan.
It had little effect except boosting the 36, 000 troops stationed there by 50%.
The drawdown began on 31st July 2011 and 650 troops were pulled out of the country and returned home to the USA.
But, Assad failed himself in seeing the gains that were made by the US in going to war somewhere in the world.
Private companies have made billions from the US interventions.
One such example: Halliburton’s KBR Inc. gained $17.2 billion in Iraq from revenue made there between 2003and 2006 alone.
That represented 20% of their total revenue for 2006.
But, we were told by the then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz in 2003 that Iraq was a country “that can really finance its own construction, and relatively soon”. The definition of relatively soon leaves a lot to be desired.
In one decade alone, the US government awarded Halliburton (once run by Dick Cheney, vice-president to G.W. Bush) a total of $39.5 billion in contracts.
There were more private companies and contractors in Iraq than in any other war in the history of the US to date and there were sometimes more of those people than the military personnel fighting the damn war.
Taxpayers’ money financed yet again in a complex and insidious manner the private companies of the cronies that had chums in high places.
The Commission on Wartime Contracting in 2011 estimated that in Iraq and Afghanistan $60 billion had been wasted by or defrauded from the US administration.
That works out to $12 million every day.
The last troops pulled out of Iraq in 2011.
But, there are still 14, 000 contractors there reaping the benefits, along with protection afforded by 5, 500 security personnel.
Assad may well be right when he says that the US has lost every single war since Vietnam.
But, there are not only losers in those wars. The winners will be the private companies that will again increase in number and that will once again be granted federal contracts to dip deeply into the riches as the country focuses on the boys on the front that are fighting for such ‘noble causes’ as humanitarian aid and people’s lives. The US will reap the benefits from such an invasion. There is just the waiting around for the right moment, making it look as if the United Nations Security Council still actually does have an ounce of authority left in the world today. We all know that it doesn’t. Antiquated and an old man in carpet slippers from a bygone era catapulted into modernity that just can’t keep up with the pace these days.
Syria- Chemical Weapons - Assad or Washington?
It won’t just be Obama, but he’ll simply be another in a long line of successive administrators that will enter a war for official and unofficial reasons. But, the UK-based defense contractor Britam was hacked months again now revealing that the red line needed to be crossed. An email revealed: “Phil We’ve got a new offer. It’s about Syria again. Qataris propose an attractive deal and swear that the idea is approved by Washington. We’ll have to deliver a CW to Homs, a Soviet origin g-shell from Libya similar to those that Assad should have. They want us to deploy our Ukrainian personnel that should speak Russian and make a video record. Frankly, I don’t think it’s a good idea but the sums proposed are enormous. Your opinion?”
‘CW’ stands for chemical weapons. Exposure of the truth or intoxication? Who knows? Of course the email could have been created to discredit the US authorities and the West. But, the email does emanate from the IP range of Britam, and according to experts, that means that it is much harder to do so, but not impossible. Since 2009 Halliburton has been the parent company of Britam.
Was the plan ‘Washington approved’? If it is true, then it makes a shoddy hash of principles. Waving the false flagwould mean that the whole system from A to Z is corrupt. The US, the West, NATO, the UN, the Security Council. Not one of them to save any of the others. Those people had principles instilled in them, they may have just chosen not to abide by them. But, as Gandhi once stated on the roots of violence in the world; it only stems from: “Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles”.
Wealth doesn’t necessarily need work, just warfare it would seem, and some people’s conscience went long ago along with morality. Politics never had principles, did it?