"...Bacevich describes a near future in which the US is in an almost constant state of war."

The Children's Crusade

Posted by Jeff Huber

“Soldiers came to school today,” announced the Kindergarten kid. "They only kill bad people. They don't kill good people." This is story comes to us by way of Jon Letman of Truthout. The Kindergarten kid is his five-year old son.

Letman relates that:

"In his book The Limits of Power, Boston University history Professor and retired Army Col. Andrew J. Bacevich describes a near future in which the US is in an almost constant state of war. He writes, "Rather than brief interventions ending in decisive victory, sustained presence will be the norm ... The future will be one of small wars, expected to be frequent, protracted, perhaps perpetual." If Bacevich's bleak assessment proves true, it's no wonder the National Guard sees value in chatting up kindergarteners."

The 50-year Long War embraced by the Pentagon and its allies in the military-industrial-congressional complex is by far the most insidious policy ever dealt to the American public from the bottom of the deck. Sun Tzu noted more than two thousand years ago that no nation ever profited from a long war.

Reuters reports that, “U.S. defense spending in coming years must rise roughly six percent on average from the record sum sought by President Barack Obama this year just to meet current plans.” So much for the peace dividend Big Daddy Bush promised us.

War has become America’s top export. Military recruiting is through the roof because of the poor economy. How pathetic it is that the most powerful nation on earth has nothing to offer its youth but war. Even more pathetic is the kind of war the nation has to offer them.

COIN, the acronym for counterinsurgency, has replaced airpower and nuclear weapons as the latest “truth” in American warfare. COIN’s basic premise calls for “effective governance by a legitimate government.” We don’t have effective or legitimate governance in Iraq or Afghanistan, and we’re not going to have it. Nuri al-Maliki’s Shiite government will never “unify” with the Sunni and Kurd factions in Iraq, and Hamid Karzai’s Afghan government is a mob of drug dealers and warlords. We’re fighting wars that by our own definition are doomed to fail.

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When haven't we been at war?

We've been in an unbroken state of war since Vietnam, and there hasn't been much peacetime at all stretching way back to the Spanish-American war. And depending on one's definition of "war", one could well argue that we've been in a state of war since Europeans arrived on this continent.

If there are any historians out there I would love to know when the last year that Americans did not engage in military action on foreign soil (or alternatively foreigners engaging in military action on our soil, as in the War of 1812). I'm pretty sure that year would start with two digits no higher than "18".

Went from V-J right into Korea, from Korea into Vietnam, and then over and over...

not to even mention such bagatelles as South and Central America, where we fought for United Fruits and Nuts and other corporate interests, regardless of whetehr it was in America's interest.

"They only kill bad people." I was just explaining to my kids the other day that everybody thinks they're the good guy, even the bad guys.