In an op-ed column in today’s Washington Post, Andrew J. Bacevich demolishes the neocon ideological underpinnings of the Iraq War. Despite my incompetence with computers, I have worked hard to make sure that today’s posting has a hot button to this extraordinary article. It is a must read for anyone with doubts about the war – or for that matter, those without doubts.
Bacevich is a professor of international relations at Boston University where Wild Bill roamed half a century ago when that great institution still admitted mildly ADHD crazies from Brockton, MA.
Bacevich is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and was awarded his Ph.D. in international relations from Princeton. He served in the army and retired as colonel. This guy understands the military and what has happened to this nation during the period from the end of W.W.II to the present like no one else I’ve come across.
That the professor happens to think very much like me on these matters clearly demonstrates his competence. I wrote to him this morning and complimented him on the fine article. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only difference that I’ve been able to discern between our positions is that he knows of what he writes while I rant from the position of concerned citizen.
His new book, The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War, that arrived here yesterday and will be reviewed for you as soon as I am able, promises to be a blockbuster.
Please read the article, it is the clearest and most incisive piece on how America went wrong in Iraq that I’ve ever seen.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48480-2005Mar18.html
Blog on!
Wild Bill
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3 comments:
This is a good article.
I think that the concept of war is being re-defined by Americans. Also, because of the internet, War in general is up-close and personal. We can follow the horror and the reality of it.
LindaL
?Toppling Saddam Hussein opened a Pandora's box of unanticipated complications. Whether it was attacks on oil pipelines or insurgents infiltrating into the new Iraqi security forces, events time and again caught U.S. officials flat-footed. Even success proves transitory, with yesterday's apparent accomplishment becoming unglued today." I do not believe Americans are paying any attention at all to this war, just watch the lead stories on NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and even PBS. There's no news in the Iraq war, it's always old news, new bodies of young men replace the old "new bodies" of yesterday, but it's all, "old news". I am disgusted by the apathy.
Looks like the ret. general is disavowing his career. Has he decided to disavow his retirement pay also>
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