William Kristol knows what is wrong with the United States. As he wrote recently
in the flagship magazine of the neo-conservatives, the Weekly Standard, the
problem with the US is that we seem to have lost our appetite for war. According
to Kristol, the troubles that have befallen us in the 20th century have all
been the result of these periodic bouts of war-weariness, a kind of virus
that we catch from time to time.
He claims because of the US "drawdown" in Europe after World War II, Stalin
subjugated Eastern Europe. Because of war weariness the United States stopped
bombing Southeast Asia in the 1970s, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
War weariness through the 1990s led to Rwanda, Milosevic, and the rise of
the Taliban. It was our fault for not fighting on! According to Kristol, our
failure to act as the policeman of the world is why we were attacked on September
11, 2001. Of the 1990s, he wrote, "[t]hat decade of not policing the world
ended with 9/11."
That revisionism is too much even for fellow neo-conservatives like Paul Wolfowitz
to swallow. In a 2003 interview,
Wolfowitz admitted that it was the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia that
led to the growth of al-Qaeda:
"(W)e can now remove almost all of our forces from Saudi Arabia. Their
presence there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty
for a friendly government. It's been a huge recruiting device for al Qaeda.
In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his principle grievances was the
presence of so-called crusader forces on the holy land, Mecca and Medina."
But for Kristol and his allies there is never enough war. According to a new study by
Brown University, the US invasion of Iraq cost some 190,000 lives, most of
them non-combatants. It has cost more than $1.7 trillion, and when all is
said and done including interest the cost may well be $6 trillion. Some $212
billion was spent on Iraqi reconstruction with nothing to show for it. Total
deaths from US war on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have been at least 329,
000. None of this is enough for Kristol.
The neo-con ideology promotes endless war, but neo-cons fight their battles
with the blood of others. From the comfortable, subsidized offices of magazines
like the Weekly Standard, the neo-conservatives urge the United States
to engage in endless war - to be fought by the victims of the "poverty
draft" from states where there are few jobs. Ironically, these young people
cannot find more productive work because the Federal Reserve's endless money
printing to keep the war machine turning has destroyed our economy. The six
trillion dollars that will be spent on the Iraq war are merely pieces of printed
paper that further erode the dollar's purchasing power now and well into the
future. It is the inflation tax, which is the most regressive and cruel of
all.
Yes, Americans are war weary, concedes Kristol. But he does not blame the
average American. The real problem is that the president has dropped the ball
on terrifying Americans with the lies and imaginary threats that led to the
invasion of Iraq. Writes Kristol: "One can't, for example, be surprised at
the ebbing support of the American public for the war in Afghanistan years
after the president stopped trying to mobilize their support, stopped heralding
the successes of the troops he'd sent there, and stopped explaining the importance
of their mission."
If only we had more war propaganda from the highest levels of government we
could be cured of this war-weariness. Ten years ago the US invaded Iraq under
the influence of neo-conservative lies. Those lies continued to promote US
military action in places like Libya, and next on their agenda is Syria and
then on to Iran. It is time for the American people to shout "enough!"
