Reflections on America: The Wars

Today I will start a series of critical reflections on the USA and the first part will be about America's wars.

I just read a Daily Kos diary about the comparison between Vietnam and Iraq and yesterday on CNN I heard a very strange Republican presidential candidate say some interesting things. Ron Paul (whose name - honestly! - I had never heard before and who seems to be hated by most Republicans) thinks that the Iraq war was wrong, is a disaster and the USA should pull out. Asked by the CNN journalist what the USA should do in a scenario where North Korea attacks South Korea or China attacks Taiwan, he insisted that this shouldn't necessarily be a US problem. He thinks that Korea would be reunited like Vietnam, weren't it for the US presence in the south, and that the USA didn't intervene in the Russian-Chechen war, so why should they intervene in a Chinese-Taiwanese conflict. With one sentence: The USA isn't a world police.

Of course, after the two World Wars that's exactly the role the USA found themselves in and especially Europe during the Cold War was comfortable with that. The unofficial title of the US president as "leader of the free world" speaks for itself. (How ironic now to give this title to Bush of all people. But that's another story.) The USA became a superpower but with this status came arrogance.

Then came these proxy-wars against Communism and things became less clear. In this Washington Post article mentioned in the diary I earlier talked about, the similarities between Vietnam and Iraq are stunning. How can a country make the same mistakes over and over again? Do they never learn from History?

A while ago my great blogger friend beachmom had a fantastic diary on Daily Kos that really showed where the problem lies. As the superpower USA can't loose a war militarily, it must be lost morally at home. It's all the fault of the American people who didn't believe in the Vietnam war anymore and who don't believe in the Iraq war now. That's the famous "Dolchstosslegende" ("Stabbed in the Back") used by Hindenburg to explain Germany's defeat in World War I. Well, the result was Germany's Word War II. The Germans learned it the hard way that this was bullshit. But they learned it. What's about the USA? How many Koreas, Vietnams, Somalias, Afghanistans and Iraqs do they need to learn it?

America is no world police and shouldn't try to be. And especially not in the imperialistic and fascist way, George W. Bush starts his preemptive wars. And another question occurs: Why don't Democratic politicians use this frank talk that Ron Paul used? Well, I know it's not popular. When Harry Reid said that the Iraq war is lost he was immediately attacked, when Barack Obama and John McCain talked about "soldiers' lives wasted", they had to apologize. They can't tell the truth because they would be called un-american or unpatriotic. What an idiocy! That's part of these "stabbed in the back" excuses.

I'm always amazed to hear John Kerry's answers when he is asked if it means that he doesn't support the troops when he calls for a withdrawal from Iraq. Okay, these questions asked by so-called journalists who are nothing else than propaganda tools for the Bush regime are more than stupid. When Kerry answers that he supports the troops by seeking a diplomatic solution for Iraq and the region, I'm sure he means what he says. Or at least, he meant it in '04 and until a while ago. But does he still mean it? Maybe he is the eternal optimist and really does. But aren't we at a point now where nobody can deny anymore that this war is just lost and no measures - diplomatic, military or whatsoever - can avoid the down-slide into total chaos of Iraq and probably (God help us!) the surrounding countries. Why can't they just state the facts: The USA lost a war... again. Will it be the last one? Will they ever learn their lesson?