MB Civic

Swanson on Firedoglake ..

Two flatly contradictory claims toward the end of “Drift” sum up my ambivalent attitude toward the book. First, Maddow writes that “there are no examples in modern history in which a counterinsurgency in a foreign country has been successful. None!” Then, a few pages later, back on the theme of reckless spending, Maddow writes: “‘We don’t have any enemies in Congress,’ a senior defense official told me in 2011. ‘We have to fight Congress to cut programs, not keep them.’ And those are basically the only fights the Pentagon ever loses.” Well, except for every single counterinsurgency, every single war, the war on Iraq, the war on Afghanistan, the war on Pakistan, the war on Libya, the wars back to the start of the book in Vietnam. None of those nations are better off because of U.S. bombs. The United States is not better off because of having bombed them. The United States does not control them. They have not submitted to its will. Why not admit that the Pentagon always loses? Why not admit that its losses are crimes and must always be immoral and illegal in every instance? What does Maddow want us to do with a story of the dogs of war gradually going mad, if the story claims that those dogs provide a “service” and tend to “win”?

excellent article + must read – mab .. read more