Originally published at TomDispatch.com

We’ve now been at war with, or in, Iraq for almost 20 years, and intermittently at war in Afghanistan for 30 years.  Think of it as nearly half a century of experience, all bad.  And what is it that Washington seems to have concluded?  In Afghanistan, where one disaster after another has occurred, that we Americans can finally do more of the same, somewhat differently calibrated, and so much better.  In Iraq, where we had, it seemed, decided that enough was enough and we should simply depart, the calls from a familiar crew for us to stay are growing louder by the week.    

The Iraqis, so the argument goes, need us.  After all, who would leave them alone, trusting them not to do what they’ve done best in recent years: cut one another’s throats?    

Modesty in Washington?  Humility?  The ability to draw new lessons from long-term experience?  None of the above is evidently appropriate for “the indispensable nation,” as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once called the United States, and to whose leaders she attributed the ability to “see further into the future.”  None of the above is part of the American arsenal, not when Washington’s weapon of choice, repeatedly consigned to the scrapheap of history and repeatedly rescued, remains a deep conviction that nothing is going to go anything but truly, deeply, madly badly without us, even if, as in Iraq, things have for years gone truly, deeply, madly badly with us. 

           Read more... 

The Pentagon has virtually replaced the State Department in making U.S. foreign policy, The Nation magazine charges.

“Quietly, gradually---and inevitably, given the weight of its colossal budget and imperial writ---the Pentagon has all but eclipsed the State Department at the center of US foreign policy-making,” reporter Stephen Glain writes* in the Sept. 28 issue.

In addition to new weapons and war fighters, the Pentagon’s budget “now underwrites a cluster of special funds from which it can train and equip foreign armies---often in the service of repressive regimes---as well as engage in aid development projects in pursuit of its own tactical ends.”

Although these programs technically require State Department approval and are subject to Congressional review, Glain writes, “legislative oversight and interagency coordination is spotty at best.”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon “is pushing for full discretionary control” over large sums that Glain points out “would render meaningless the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, which concentrated responsibility for civilian and military aid programs within the State Department.”

           Read more... 

Originally posted at TomDispatch.com

How to Trap a President in a Losing War
Petraeus, McChrystal, and the Surgettes

Front and center in the debate over the Afghan War these days are General Stanley "Stan" McChrystal, Afghan war commander, whose "classified, pre-decisional" and devastating report -- almost eight years and at least $220 billion later, the war is a complete disaster -- was conveniently, not to say suspiciously, leaked to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post by we-know-not-who at a particularly embarrassing moment for Barack Obama; Admiral Michael "Mike" Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has been increasingly vocal about a "deteriorating" war and the need for more American boots on the ground; and the president himself, who blitzed every TV show in sight last Sunday and Monday for his health reform program, but spent significant time expressing doubts about sending more American troops to Afghanistan. ("I'm not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan... or sending a message that America is here for the duration.")

On the other hand, here's someone you haven't seen front and center for a while: General David Petraeus.

           Read more... 

In this two part interview economist and author F. William Engdahl talks with Real News Network CEO Paul Jay about US geopolitical attempts at world domination through military and foreign policies, and his new book "Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order:

           Read more... 

No one really knows the fate of the man who was the reason for the Bush administration-proclaimed "war on terror". Some influential Pakistanis say the Americans don't know it. The Americans admit they don't know it. President George W. Bush wanted him dead or alive. No one really knows whether he's dead or alive. President Barack Obama says he and his organization remain the number one threat to the U.S. But even America's most media-savvy general admits his organization is not in Afghanistan anymore. Would that be reason enough for the U.S. to finally leave Afghanistan? On the contrary: now there's a new - counterinsurgent - top boot on the ground.
Real News Network - May 15, 2009
Obama and Osama - McChrystal clear
The more it changes, the more the "war on terror" stays the same