Friday, September 16, 2016

Is Now The Time To Re-Evaluate The U.S. War On Terror?

In the battle against the Taliban, U.S. Marines, seen here in the Korengal Valley, often face the ire of villagers who complain about mortar strikes on their homes. Eros Hoagland / Redux

Darius Shahtahmasebi, Anti-Media: The US War on Terror Has Cost $5 Trillion and Increased Terrorism by 6,500%

On September 11, 2001, one of the most tragic events in recent American history took place. Close to 3,000 civilians lost their lives in horrific terror attacks that took place on American soil. Fifteen years later, it is time to ask the question: have our counterterror efforts helped to reduce the amount of terrorism in the world? Or at the very least, have they tried to make the world safer?

According to a report released by Dr. Neta Crawford, professor of political science at Brown University, spending by the United States Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, and Veteran Affairs since 9/11 is now close to $5 trillion USD. Before we have the chance to ask how a country that has racked up over $19.3 trillion USD in debt can spend $5 trillion USD on war, the focus of this article is to ask: What has all of this spending achieved?

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WNU Editor: I certainly do not see the light at the end of this tunnel. Time for a re-think.

3 comments:

James said...

Looking at these two guys (the gear, personal appearance etc) tells me the fights they're having are getting closer and much more personal.

B.Poster said...

I think so. For the US the policy should be as follows. 1.)Redeploy all US forces that are around the world to positions along America's borders and off its coasts. Preferably this would be done in an orderly fashion where "allies" have the time and space to make proper adjustments but regardless this needs to happen as soon as possible. At least this way these forces would have a fighting chance to defend America which presumably is what they signed up to do and it should increase troop morale and troop retention as now the forces are doing what they signed up to do and will actually have a reasonable chance of doing it. 2.)It is clear that the US immigration system is a mess. Place a ten year moratorium on all immigration to allow the US breathing space to fix this problem. There should be an indefinite moratorium on immigration from Middle Eastern/Islamic countries. It makes little sense to allow people into your house who don't like you and wish to harm you. If we need guest workers to provide things that Americans lack the skills to provide, we can look at programs some other countries have used quite effectively in these situations. 3.) Upgrade and expand the nuclear arsenal including the means to deliver it. Having a viable nuclear deterant will help us to provide a disincentive for countries such as Russia and China who possess more powerful conventional forces to attack us. 3.)Develop all of our own oil and gas reserves using any and all means possible including the refining capacity to process it. At the very least, this would give us some leverage that we currently do not have when dealing with foreign suppliers. At best, we might even become energy independent and might even become the world's largest oil exporter but that could be wishful thinking. 4.)Streamline regulations that make it to costly to manufacture in the United States and extend tax incentives to manufacturers in the US. In time, this would allow us some leverage when negotiating with suppliers of manufactured goods that we currently do not have and we might even be able to become a net exporter. This would really help our economy and would mean we would be far less isolated as we would be providing others with goods and services they need that they may not be able to obtain elsewhere.

Jay Farquharson said...

The US never looks back, they can't even agree on a common narrative of what happened, they only look forward.

Those who don't learn frim history, are dommed to repeat history, and thus the GWOT will never end, history will repeat,

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/09/14/getting-fooled-on-iraq-libya-now-russia/