Just Bring The Troops Home By Jacob G. Hornberger!!!
(2017-04-03 at 18:11:38 )

Just Bring the Troops Home by Jacob G. Hornberger

One of the most amazing things about Unitd States foreign policy is how so many Americans remain mired in the interventionist paradigm. Case in point: the Middle East. No matter how much a failure United States interventionism has been in that part of the world, people simply cannot bring themselves to break out of the interventionist box. They remain convinced that the United States has no choice but to remain mired in the ongoing failure, death, and destruction in that part of the world. And they keep hoping that maybe - just maybe - it will all work out over the long term.

Thus, it is very refreshing to me whenever I find others who recognize that there is really just one right course of action for the United States to take: pull out all troops and bring them home. That is the message of an excellent op-ed in the Boston Globe today by Jeffrey D. Sachs, who teaches at Columbia University and who will be one of the speakers at FFFs upcoming June 3 conference "The National Security State and JFK.""

The title of Sachss article says it all, clearly, succinctly, and directly: "The United States Military Should Get Out of the Middle East." That is the only realistic, practical, and moral course of action, especially have several decades of failure, death, and destruction. I highly recommend that everyone read Sachs article and share it with friends.

Why some people can not see a full pull-out from the Middle East is the only right course of action for the United States to take? Why can they not finally bring themselves to break out of the interventionist box? Why can they not see that no matter what the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency do in the Middle East, it is only going to make the situation worse?

Consider the fact that the United States military and the Central Intelligence Agency, two of the principal components of the national-security establishment, have been intervening directly in the Middle East for more than half-a-century. Everyone knows how those 50 plus years of intervention have turned out - failure, death, destruction, taxes, debt, and loss of liberty and privacy for the American people.

Why would any rational person think another 10-50 years of more intervention are going to produce different results?

In 1953, United States officials engineered a coup that ousted the democratically elected prime minister of Iran and installed, trained, and supported a tyrant successor. How has that worked out?

During the 1980s, U.S. officials partnered with and supported Saddam Hussein in his war on Iran. How has that worked out?

During the 1990s, United States officials turned on their partner Saddam and initiated an undeclared war against Iraq, during which they intentionally bombed Iraqs water and sewage facilities, knowing full well that that would help spread infectious illnesses among the populace. How did that work out?

The Persian Gulf War was followed by 11 years of brutal sanctions, which, among other things, prevented Iraqs water and sewage treatment plants from being repaired. When the official spokesman for the United States, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Ms Madeleine Albright, told Sixty Minutes that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions were "worth it," she was expressing the sentiment of other United States officials. How did that work out?

In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq in order to achieve the regime change that the sanctions had failed to achieve after 11 years of death and destruction, especially among Iraqi children. The United States invasion and occupation threw the entire country into even more chaos and disorder. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Iraqis encountered a perpetual hellhole of death, injury, maiming, torture, abuse, incarceration, destruction, or exile. How has that worked out?

Look at Mosul, Iraq, today. Has anyone forgotten the prominent role that city played in the death and destruction resulting from the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq? Notwithstanding the glorious appellation "Operation Iraqi Freedom" that characterized the United States occupation, today Mosul is nothing more than a hellhole of death and destruction, where multitudes are dying on a daily basis, some at the hands of United States officials who continue to drop bombs and fire missiles into the city in the process of destroying ISIS, the entity that the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq brought into existence. How is that working out?

After 241 United States soldiers were killed in the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, President Reagan did not call for negotiations, peace treaties, or international discussions to settle the issue. Recognizing that most people just do not like a foreign occupier, Reagan ordered a withdrawal of all United States troops from Lebanon. He did not let concern over that people might call him "soft on terrorism" to dissuade him from doing the right thing.

Did that stop the fighting in Lebanon? Of course not! But it did mean that the United States was no longer throwing fuel onto the fire-and that the United States government was no longer sacrificing soldiers for nothing, as it did in the Vietnam War.

And that is also what the United States government is doing in the Middle East. After itself starting some of the fires, the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency are pouring more fuel on the many ever-expanding fires - from Iraq, to Libya, to Syria, to Yemen, to Somalia.

How is all of that working out?

It has all failed!!!

Even worse, with each new intervention the situation has only gotten worse. That is what happens when one pours fuel on a fire - the fire gets worse.

Not only have they started the fires and poured fuel on the fires in the Middle East, they have then used those fires as the excuse to suspend civil liberties here at home, purportedly to keep us "safe" from the terrorist blowback their fires produce over there. There is also the impending bankruptcy of the United States government owing to out of control federal spending and debt to consider.

What will it take for the American people to finally abandon a losing policy? Jeffrey Sachs is right: Bring the troops home now. There is no other practical or moral solution.

Printed here with permission from Mr. Jacob G. Hornberger of The Future of Freedom Foundation!! Their Great Website!!