The endlessly repeated term “Vital National Interests”, as near as I can figure, is from the point of view of those in power, the corporatists and the puppets they fund into congress and the oval office, a euphemistic term, a way of saying they’ll do whatever it takes, invade whatever country they have to, kill whoever they need to, and steal whatever resources are required, to keep the “empire” from collapsing.
“Their” empire. The one that enables them to sit in luxury at the top of the pyramid of bodies, American and other, that they climb over to get to the top of.
I think that Iraqis are no more likely to give up, roll over, play dead, and hand their country to an occupier, any occupier, than the Mujahideen the Soviets tried to conquer in Afghanistan were.
No matter how long it takes, Iraqis will have their country back. The question is, what will be the ultimate price. To Iraq, and to America.
Afghanistan is still there. The USSR is not…
The Soviet war in Afghanistan, also known as the Soviet-Afghan War, was a nine-year conflict involving Soviet forces supporting the Marxist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) government against the Mujahideen resistance.
The War in Afghanistan [began in 1979 and] has been called “the Soviet Union’s Vietnam War,” a conflict that pitted Soviet regulars against a relentless, elusive, and ultimately unbeatable Afghan guerrilla force (the mujahideen). The hit-and-run bloodletting across the war’s decade tallied more than 25,000 dead Soviet soldiers plus a great many more casualties and further demoralized a USSR on the verge of disintegration.
In 1989 Ten Years After a little more time, a lot more money, and a lot more lives lost, the USSR finally was forced to give up it’s dreams of domination of Afghanistan and withdrew… and collapsed.
And speaking of the future, and the past, the interesting thing is that although the Soviet Union “collapsed”, and collapse it did,… it wasn’t the people who collapsed. It was the power establishment that collapsed. It didn’t involve any mass violence or die off of citizens or anything like that. Just the political elite mostly had to run for cover as the authoritarian fascist power structure folded like a house of cards in the wind. Life may have gotten a little tougher, in the sense that maybe there was less on the store shelves and so forth.
But it was the power structure that collapsed, that’s all. And Russia is still one of the most advanced and powerful countries on earth.
When will they ever learn?
(hat tip to NLinStPaul for the song)
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of “Vital National Interests”, although I photobucketed the Army chart above, I purposely hotlinked to the Army server at http://www.army.mil/aps/07/images/charts/globes_fig8_alt.jpg for the chart.
Maybe some of the brass there will will start to wonder about the traffic they’re getting from evey page load here at DD, and decide, out of Vital National Interest, to come over and see what the hell’s going on here.
It would be in the interest, their Vital National Interest, to do so, I think.
but shouldn’t it be a Vital National Interest to not repeat disastrous failures of the past? Volumes of research material were available on Vietnam and Afghanistan to predict what would happen in Iraq, even to those who were not morally repulsed by the idea of the war.
the Senators admitted they didn’t read the source material before they voted to give W the authority to wage a war of aggression, why would they bother to read about the mistakes of the past? We have the elected representatives we deserve because the citizens don’t investigate on their own before voting either. They’d rather believe what Fox nonNews tells them, especially if it reinforces their prejudices.
“Persons immune from lawsuits include “Anyone” who “provid[ed] assistance to an element of the intelligence community . . . in connection with intelligence activity involving communications that was (i) authorized by the President during the period beginning on September 11, 2001, and ending on January 17, 2007 and (ii) designed to prevent or detect a terrorist attack, or activities in preparation of a terrorist attack, against the United States and (B) the subject of a written request or directive . . . indicating that the activity was (i) authorized by the President; and (ii) determined to be lawful.”
The above statement leads me to believe that the amnesty provided, also includes torturers, since the president determined that it was lawful in the view that the torture was committed “to detect any activities in preparation of a terrorist attack”.
Am I way off the mark here, or does this bill cover all their asses for more than the crime of telling the tele-coms it was legal to spy, but also that it was legal to torture. The WAR COUNCIL made it so, no?
The difference between theists and atheists is that the atheists don’t set the theists on fire for refusing to agree with them.
vital national interests right here pal. –>
You ask, I provide the answer. Just substitute “Islamofascist” for “Communist” and “Commie”.
Mu . . .
I’d quote from Who is IOZ again
the planned depopulation of the US and subsequent conversion to a really big nature preserve.
http://www.roguegovernment.com…
Going back to what Philip Agee said: US interests are defined traditionally as unfettered access to the primary products and raw materials, to the labor and to the markets of foreign countries.
…and if there is something we are especially interested in that belongs to some other country, well, the end justifies the means. If it’s important enough to us we’ll find a way to take it.
Step 1 – economic strangulation, boycotts, embargoes, freeze foreign assets
Step 2 – send in the IMF or World Bank to justify large infrastructure projects in which most of the important work (engineering and construction) is done by US firms like Bechtel or Halliburton and most of the money never leaves the US and the terms are such that the country cannot repay the loan and principal. In return the host country must end social programs for the poor. We’ll let them slide if they’ll allow us unfettered access to their valuable raw materials.
Step 3 – If they disagree use propaganda, label their leaders as communists (old terminology) or supporters of terrorism (modern terminology).
Step 4 – If that fails send in the CIA/USAID/NED, ferment discontent, assassinate leaders, stage a coup.
Step 5 – If step 4 fails to bring them around send in the US Military under the guise of fighting terrorism and take what we want.
The end justifies the means. The US has first call on world’s valuable raw materials, markets and labor.
John Perkins in his book Confessions of an Economic Hitman provides the details and many examples of how it works.
Just look around, read a bit of history, it’s all there.
is whatever this current crop of fascists decide they want. They seem to want to destroy the world, vitally. To what end? Nationalism has always weirded me out, Nazi Germany being the example of where it leads if allowed to bloom.
I think that this time around, the nation state is not even involved other then as a strong man, enforcer. Capitalism in the form of corporate person hood, has no interest other then profit short term. No real face other then, the nebulous concept of globalism, free market, has hid and disguised itself as America’s national interest. In actuality I don’t even think this is in the interest of these faceless entities. They are so focused on gobbling up the world that they cannot even see that they are destroying any profit to be made except destruction. No interest is served in this instance.