President Obama will be looking to Congress to essentially approve one of the keys to his foreign policy in the Middle East - military intervention against ISIL, which has spread to parts of Iraq and Syria. I wrote about this topic yesterday, and recently also found this article by a man that I have tremendous respect for, and try to read and follow with some measure of consistency - Andrew Bacevich.
Bacevich points out the Obama is seeking ex post facto congressional approval for a military intervention that he already essentially has been conducting.
What this means is that Congress is presented with a unique opportunity to actually debate the foreign policy not just of the Obama administration, but of the United States dating back many years - to at least the Bush administration and, perhaps even dating back to the first Bush administration in regards to Iraq in particular. Here is what Bacevich says, drawing a historical comparison:
Imagine that Congress takes up Nixon’s request and debates whether or not to give its consent to what he has already done. What would be the tenor of that debate? Would members of Congress confine their inquiry to the specific question Nixon had posed: Whether or not to okay the Cambodian invasion? Or would the Cambodian issue open the door to a more searching examination of the premises and conduct of the Vietnam War and indeed of the Cold War itself?
Drawing historical comparisons, Bacevich argues that this request by the Obama White House essentially offers this Congress the opportunity to debate the wisdom of this never ending Global War on Terror, an opportunity denied it in the past with President Nixon's expansion of the Vietnam War into neighboring Cambodia:
Back in 1970, when the predicament was the Vietnam War, those questions demanded urgent attention. Today, the enterprise once known as the Global War on Terrorism, now informally referred to as the Long War or the Forever War or (my personal preference) America’s War for the Greater Middle East, defines our predicament. But the questions remain the same as they were when Cambodia rather than the Islamic State represented the issue of the moment.
We never really got the chance for a public debate on the wisdom, or potential lack thereof, of our Cold War strategy, including the Vietnam War in particular, and the more expansive and draining arms race against the Soviet Union in general. An arms race that supposedly should have ended when Gorbachev disbanded the Soviet Union and, effectively ended the Cold War. Yet, the military budget of the United States these days seems to exceed Cold War-era military budgets!
However, Obama's request gives this Congress that unique opportunity to actually put this strategy into question. The names and locations and specific situations have changed, but the questions largely would be the same: Is our strategy working? How badly is this draining us economically (to say nothing about actual lives lost and destroyed because of the war)? Should we continue pursuing this, or should we begin to rein in our empirical tentacles around the world at some point?
Remember, the American public was sold on the rosy predictions of the Iraq War. We would be seen as liberators, welcomed on the streets with open arms. The war would last days and maybe, at most weeks, but certainly not months. In fact, it lasted over a decade. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dismissed an estimated cost of $200 billion in total of the war by Bush's economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, and instead, there were official estimates that suggested that the total costs of the war would instead be somewhere between $50 to $60 billion. In fact, the Iraq War has been estimated to have cost between $2 to $3 trillion!
So, just how costly has this so-called "War on Terror" been (and not just the one in Iraq)? By some estimates, the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined that each lasted more than a decade after they began is costing roughly $75,000 for every single American household! Those two wars combined cost an estimated $6 trillion! Again, the war in Iraq alone drained us of somewhere between $2-$3 trillion.
And remember, the Bush administration doggedly stuck to policies of tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and corporate welfare throughout, and that was while waging the supposed "War on Terror". Of course, this came from the same administration that brought the American economy to the brink of collapse, and it nonetheless entered what has been called "The Great Recession". The Bush years in general saw just a ton of corporate scandals, even if these did not make for juicy headlines gobbled up by the American public like the various sex scandals of the Clinton administration that preceded it. But these scandals, and the scandal of a war fought on fabricated reasons, have obviously cost far more than any sex scandal ever did, in so many more ways. It cost trillions of dollars, and cost thousands of Americans (and over 100,000 Iraqis) their lives, plus seriously injured countless more! Plus, it hurt America's reputation around the world far more than any sex scandal that Clinton was involved in.
Not surprisingly, given the failures of the Bush administration, the outcome of the war was not nearly so rosy as predicted. They did not greet Americans with open arms, and a stable democracy was not what resulted after years and years of a draining and seemingly endless war. In fact, Iraq was further destabilized by the conflict. Is it really that shocking to think that war would destabilize a whole nation, and possibly region, the way that this one did? Hasn't war generally done that throughout history?
But at the time, most Americans did not want to hear dissenting voices. Bush himself suggested as much, famously declaring: "You are either with us, or against us." Indeed, if you were against the Iraq war, you were accused of being "weak" and sympathizing with terrorists. There was a stifling lack of debate, and a lack of responsible media presenting the actual facts to the American public. Instead, the media focused on an ugly and aggressive spirit of jingoistic, yellow journalism. France, a traditional ally that happened to be opposed to the war, became the enemy. Instead of concentrating on the factual evidence of WMD's and Saddam's supposed enormous and imminent threat to world peace, and his alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons, Americans were given more fuel to the fire of war fever griping Americans, as a spirit of French-bashing came into vogue. French jokes reined on late night tv shows, and news headlines covered the story of the word "French" being censored in the Congressional cafeteria, being replaced, irony of ironies, with the word "freedom". While gobbling "Freedom fries" and "Freedom toast", Americans happily dove into an ill-advised war. Indeed, so sure of a quick and decisive victory were many supporters, that some Americans sported t-shirts and bumper stickers that suggested that, after Bagdad, the next destination should be Paris.
The world recoiled in horror from this ugly, nationalistic (bordering on xenophobic) Americentrism, and the narrow-mindedness (and blindness) of those who engaged in it.
Again, however, there was really no debate. Major media outlets spoke admiringly of Tony Blair's decision to team up with the United States in the war. Matt Lauer spoke of Blair's bravery, even though some people who were interested in actual news, and not opinions, wondered why Lauer, or anyone else, would chime in with their opinions. Forget that! Opinions were all that mattered. Bush's opinion that we needed to wage war won out, and Americans focusing on being resentful of so much of the rest of the world that opposed our actions won out. Bush's approval ratings were high, and dissenters were labeled "un-American". Remember?
No room for debate there. And the American people gave Bush the authority to wage a ridiculous and unjustifiable war. A war that turned into a fiasco quickly, and eventually, became a more long-lasting quagmire.
Here we are, almost 12 full years now since the Iraq war began, and we are, once again, discussing the possibility of entering another war in Iraq. Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait was the argument back in 1990 in the lead-up to war in 1991. Saddam Hussein's imminent threat to world peace and his non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD's) were the urgent arguments for the necessity of war in 2002 leading up to war in 2003, even though these claims were unfounded. Now, in 2014 and into 2015, we are told that the Islamic State poses an enormous threat to the region and to American interests.
To those ends, President Obama authorized military strikes, using his executive powers in order to do so. Much like Nixon before him, he went ahead and engaged in the military strike before without seeking Congressional approval. Or, apparently, at least, he did so before seeking Congressional approval, because he is now going to Congress to seek approval, and to seek legitimacy to engaging militarily against the Islamic State.
Let us return to Bacevich's assessment about this rather bizarre scenario and, indeed, as Bacevich refers to it as, an opportunity for the American people and for Congress to actually hold a meaningful debate on the collective wisdom of our strategy in the Middle East in general, and Iraq in particular, and how all of this relates to the "Global War on Terror":
So President Obama’s requested Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) could not have come at a more propitious moment. The proposed AUMF presents the Congress with an extraordinary opportunity — not to rubber stamp actions already taken, but to take stock of an undertaking that already exceeds the Vietnam War in length while showing not the slightest sign of ending in success.
I still find it so ironic that this latest request for a war is to be fought, in all places, in Iraq. We all know that we have gained an extensive history of costly military involvement in that country. Let us remember that this would not be the first, or even the second, time that we pursued military intervention there. In 1991, Americans hailed the outcome of a war there, but it was limited in it's scope. The United States, and the U.N. backed coalition fighting alongside it, only aimed to get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, and succeeded. Americans celebrated with ticker tape parades, and declarations that the success of the war vindicated the nation following the debacle in Vietnam.
Yet, 12 years later, there we were again, getting involved in another war in Iraq. This time, we would get the big, bad dictator. We would achieve "regime change", and he would be captured. Indeed, those things happen. But we still would have a hard time viewing that war as a success, because it did not achieve it's aims. Instead of stabilizing Iraq, it was thrown into chaos. Instead of making Iraq a solid partner in our war against terrorism, we made it a hotbed of terrorism.
So now, here we go again. A massive movement that Obama assures us consists of terrorists, and not religious leaders, has taken over much of Iraq, as well as Syria. It's time to go to war again, and this time, we will throw out these terrorists, this Islamic State.
Let us do this time what we failed to do last time. Namely, let us think. Debate. Ask questions. Scrutinize how much we are being told the truth by authorities with vested interests in the conflict. Let us actually learn from the lessons of the past and, given the checkered history of our military involvement in the region in general, and Iraq in particular, let us give some real pause for thought before committing to yet another costly (in every sense of the word, surely) military conflict. Let us not simply dive headfirst into yet another war that we cannot win.
Here is the article on Bill Moyers webpage, written by Andrew Bacevich, that got me on this particular topic (for a second day in a row, admittedly):
Obama’s ISIS War Request Is an “Extraordinary Opportunity” for Congress February 14, 2015 by Andrew Bacevich:
http://billmoyers.com/2015/02/14/asking-right-questions/
Here are just a few of the articles on the actual costs (in dollars) of the war, which should be revealing for many Americans, if they actually were provided with this kind of black and white, monetary figure, in order to be made to understand how much these wars actually bleed from our tax dollars as the years pile up:
US Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq to Cost $6 trillion by Sabir Shah for Global Research New, February 12, 2014:
Can the U.S. afford another $3 trillion war? By Linda J. Bilmes, Special for CNN, August 27, 2014:
The $3 Trillion War BY JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ AND LINDA J. BILMES
Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion: study BY DANIEL TROTTA NEW YORK Thu Mar 14, 2013:
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