Fifteen Years After 9/11, Neverending War

[Octoldit]

Alex Emmons
Sep. 10 2016, 9:10 p.m.

IN THE DAYS after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when Congress voted to authorize military force against the people who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the hijackings, few Americans could have imagined the resulting manhunt would span from West Africa all the way to the Philippines, and would outlast two two-term presidents.

Today, U.S. military engagement in the Middle East looks increasingly permanent. Despite the White House having formally ended the wars Iraqand Afghanistan, thousands of U.S. troops and contractors remain in both countries. The U.S. is dropping bombs on Iraq and Syria faster than it can make them, and according to the Pentagon, its bombing campaign in Libya has “no end point at this particular moment.” The U.S. is also helping Saudi Arabia wage war in Yemen, in addition to conducting occasional airstrikes in Yemen and Somalia.

Fifteen years after the September 11 attacks, it looks like the War on Terror is still in its opening act.

The drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan only revealed how little war has achieved and how much damage it has inflicted. In Afghanistan, the Taliban now holds more territory than it has at any point since 2001. One poll from 2016 found that more than 90 percent of young people in Iraq now consider the United States an “enemy” of their country.

The Islamic State, which was largely created by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, controls vast swaths of territory in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, and has demonstrated an emboldened capability to orchestrate attacks in Europe. In June, CIA Director John Brennan told Congress that “despite all our progress against ISIL on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capability and global reach.”

Al Qaeda, the original enemy, today controls territory in Yemen and Somalia, but it is no longer considered a priority. In the span of one year, for example, the U.S.-backed war in Yemen quadrupled the size of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — the terror group’s most dangerous offshoot. The CIA has continued to arm Syrian rebels, despite the fact that those weapons have found their way to a former al Qaeda affiliate. Retired General David Petraeus, formerly the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan,actually suggested arming al Qaeda directly to help fight ISIS.

Despite the lack of progress, the last 15 years of war have come at a horrific cost.

The U.S. lost nearly 2,300 service members in Afghanistan, and nearly 4,500 in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands were forever damaged. Those figures do not include at least 6,900 U.S. contractors and at least 43,000 Afghan and Iraqi troops who lost their lives.

The death toll in the countries the U.S. attacked remains untallied, but conservative estimates range from the hundreds of thousands to well over a million. Add to that the hundreds of people tortured in U.S. custody, and thousands killed by U.S. drones in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia.

The financial cost of the War on Terror is incalculable. The Iraq and Afghan wars, including the medical costs for veterans, are estimated to end up costing the U.S. at least $4 trillion dollars. Intelligence budgets have doubled, on top of more than $800 billion spent on “homeland security.”

Billions of dollars have been wasted on fruitless projects – like a failed plan to install radiation detectors at airports, which cost the government $230 million. The Department of Homeland Security wasted $1.1 billion on a “virtual fence” of sensors along the Mexican border before scrapping the program. The examples go on and on. The CIA paid one contractor $20 million to build a program that could discover encoded terrorist messages in Al Jazeera news broadcasts. Just last year, the Pentagon spent $43 million on one gas station in Afghanistan. Two contract psychologists were paid $80 million for designing the CIA’s torture program.

After 15 years, the only winners in the War on Terror have been the contractors.

At home, the War on Terror has become a Constitutional nightmare. The U.S. has adopted a practice of indefinitely detaining terror suspects. Police departments across the country secretly import military grade spy equipment. Courts have ruled that families cannot sue to get their children off government kill lists. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the U.S. has become the largest surveillance state in history.

In the 2016 presidential campaigns, torture has become one party’s applause line, in no small part due to President Obama’s failure to prosecute the architects of the Bush-era torture program.

Bombing multiple countries in the Middle East has become business as usual, and often goes unreported. On August 1, for example, the day the Obama administration announced a new bombing campaign against ISIS in Libya, American journalists were far more occupied with post-conventionelection polls than they were with the new war.

All of this foreshadows a war that could stretch 10, 20, or 50 more years. As the U.S. shifts its strategy towards bombing and away from ground troops, media engagement with the wars diminishes, and it is all too easy to forget about our permanent state of war. But the victims of U.S. violence are unlikely to forget, creating a potentially endless supply of new enemies.

Source: Fifteen Years After 9/11, Neverending War

 

[Sundance508]

The above is what happens when you do not fight a war to win...aka fighting a 'limited war' aka korea, vietnam and the first gulf war.

What we are doing is conducting a 'holding action' aka just fighting enough to keep them from coming over here....Bush had complete moral authority to wipe out Islamic Jihadism....what did he do? He sucked up to his oil buddies aka Saudia Arabia...hid their involement...aka the fact that Saudi petro dollars financed the 9/11 operation etc.etc. and so on and so forth.

Then he proceeded to fight a limited war and trot around the world proclaiming Islam was a peaceful religion.....then he invaded the wrong country...Iraq...he should have gone into Iran...they were known to be a state sponsoring terrorism.

Thus the people came to understand that bush was not serious not even to mention his celebrated cause for going into Iraq was a lie...aka they had wmd's .....hence the loss of his moral authority...his loss of credibility and suprise, suprise the American People went into denial thought the whole thing was a waste of time if not a hoax...went into denial and demanded to bring the troops home like in vietnam...the only problem...this war with islamic jihadists could not be ended with bringing the boys home...the islamic jihadists declared war upon us and they will not be deterred by our bringing the troops home...they unlike us want absolute victory....and they are willing to die for it.

 

[LuckyDuck]

The average western population along with their elected officials are totally ignorant of Islam's history and goals and naively think that all you need to do is to "talk" to Islamists and all will be well. They just don't get the total commitment to eliminating all infidels that the Islamists have. To give an idea of what the west is facing, I'll paraphrase a sentence from the film: Terminator. "They can't be bargained with, won't be reasoned with, don't feel pity or remorse regarding you and absolutely will NOT stop until you are either converted, subjugated (enslaved), or dead. Period. Those who do not understand their enemy, lose to their enemy.....and they are your enemy.

 

[Sundance508]

The average western population along with their elected officials are totally ignorant of Islam's history and goals and naively think that all you need to do is to "talk" to Islamists and all will be well. They just don't get the total commitment to eliminating all infidels that the Islamists have. To give an idea of what the west is facing, I'll paraphrase a sentence from the film: Terminator. "They can't be bargained with, won't be reasoned with, don't feel pity or remorse regarding you and absolutely will NOT stop until you are either converted, subjugated (enslaved), or dead. Period. Those who do not understand their enemy, lose to their enemy.....and they are your enemy.

Exactly...........very few understand that....most unfortunately...our top leaders.

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

Alex Emmons
Sep. 10 2016, 9:10 p.m.

IN THE DAYS after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when Congress voted to authorize military force against the people who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the hijackings, few Americans could have imagined the resulting manhunt would span from West Africa all the way to the Philippines, and would outlast two two-term presidents.

Today, U.S. military engagement in the Middle East looks increasingly permanent. Despite the White House having formally ended the wars Iraqand Afghanistan, thousands of U.S. troops and contractors remain in both countries. The U.S. is dropping bombs on Iraq and Syria faster than it can make them, and according to the Pentagon, its bombing campaign in Libya has “no end point at this particular moment.” The U.S. is also helping Saudi Arabia wage war in Yemen, in addition to conducting occasional airstrikes in Yemen and Somalia.

Fifteen years after the September 11 attacks, it looks like the War on Terror is still in its opening act.

The drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan only revealed how little war has achieved and how much damage it has inflicted. In Afghanistan, the Taliban now holds more territory than it has at any point since 2001. One poll from 2016 found that more than 90 percent of young people in Iraq now consider the United States an “enemy” of their country.

The Islamic State, which was largely created by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, controls vast swaths of territory in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, and has demonstrated an emboldened capability to orchestrate attacks in Europe. In June, CIA Director John Brennan told Congress that “despite all our progress against ISIL on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capability and global reach.”

Al Qaeda, the original enemy, today controls territory in Yemen and Somalia, but it is no longer considered a priority. In the span of one year, for example, the U.S.-backed war in Yemen quadrupled the size of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — the terror group’s most dangerous offshoot. The CIA has continued to arm Syrian rebels, despite the fact that those weapons have found their way to a former al Qaeda affiliate. Retired General David Petraeus, formerly the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan,actually suggested arming al Qaeda directly to help fight ISIS.

Despite the lack of progress, the last 15 years of war have come at a horrific cost.

The U.S. lost nearly 2,300 service members in Afghanistan, and nearly 4,500 in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands were forever damaged. Those figures do not include at least 6,900 U.S. contractors and at least 43,000 Afghan and Iraqi troops who lost their lives.

The death toll in the countries the U.S. attacked remains untallied, but conservative estimates range from the hundreds of thousands to well over a million. Add to that the hundreds of people tortured in U.S. custody, and thousands killed by U.S. drones in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia.

The financial cost of the War on Terror is incalculable. The Iraq and Afghan wars, including the medical costs for veterans, are estimated to end up costing the U.S. at least $4 trillion dollars. Intelligence budgets have doubled, on top of more than $800 billion spent on “homeland security.”

Billions of dollars have been wasted on fruitless projects – like a failed plan to install radiation detectors at airports, which cost the government $230 million. The Department of Homeland Security wasted $1.1 billion on a “virtual fence” of sensors along the Mexican border before scrapping the program. The examples go on and on. The CIA paid one contractor $20 million to build a program that could discover encoded terrorist messages in Al Jazeera news broadcasts. Just last year, the Pentagon spent $43 million on one gas station in Afghanistan. Two contract psychologists were paid $80 million for designing the CIA’s torture program.

After 15 years, the only winners in the War on Terror have been the contractors.

At home, the War on Terror has become a Constitutional nightmare. The U.S. has adopted a practice of indefinitely detaining terror suspects. Police departments across the country secretly import military grade spy equipment. Courts have ruled that families cannot sue to get their children off government kill lists. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the U.S. has become the largest surveillance state in history.

In the 2016 presidential campaigns, torture has become one party’s applause line, in no small part due to President Obama’s failure to prosecute the architects of the Bush-era torture program.

Bombing multiple countries in the Middle East has become business as usual, and often goes unreported. On August 1, for example, the day the Obama administration announced a new bombing campaign against ISIS in Libya, American journalists were far more occupied with post-conventionelection polls than they were with the new war.

All of this foreshadows a war that could stretch 10, 20, or 50 more years. As the U.S. shifts its strategy towards bombing and away from ground troops, media engagement with the wars diminishes, and it is all too easy to forget about our permanent state of war. But the victims of U.S. violence are unlikely to forget, creating a potentially endless supply of new enemies.

Source: Fifteen Years After 9/11, Neverending War

Take it up with allah and the democrats.

 

[2aguy]

Alex Emmons
Sep. 10 2016, 9:10 p.m.

IN THE DAYS after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when Congress voted to authorize military force against the people who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the hijackings, few Americans could have imagined the resulting manhunt would span from West Africa all the way to the Philippines, and would outlast two two-term presidents.

Today, U.S. military engagement in the Middle East looks increasingly permanent. Despite the White House having formally ended the wars Iraqand Afghanistan, thousands of U.S. troops and contractors remain in both countries. The U.S. is dropping bombs on Iraq and Syria faster than it can make them, and according to the Pentagon, its bombing campaign in Libya has “no end point at this particular moment.” The U.S. is also helping Saudi Arabia wage war in Yemen, in addition to conducting occasional airstrikes in Yemen and Somalia.

Fifteen years after the September 11 attacks, it looks like the War on Terror is still in its opening act.

The drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan only revealed how little war has achieved and how much damage it has inflicted. In Afghanistan, the Taliban now holds more territory than it has at any point since 2001. One poll from 2016 found that more than 90 percent of young people in Iraq now consider the United States an “enemy” of their country.

The Islamic State, which was largely created by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, controls vast swaths of territory in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, and has demonstrated an emboldened capability to orchestrate attacks in Europe. In June, CIA Director John Brennan told Congress that “despite all our progress against ISIL on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capability and global reach.”

Al Qaeda, the original enemy, today controls territory in Yemen and Somalia, but it is no longer considered a priority. In the span of one year, for example, the U.S.-backed war in Yemen quadrupled the size of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — the terror group’s most dangerous offshoot. The CIA has continued to arm Syrian rebels, despite the fact that those weapons have found their way to a former al Qaeda affiliate. Retired General David Petraeus, formerly the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan,actually suggested arming al Qaeda directly to help fight ISIS.

Despite the lack of progress, the last 15 years of war have come at a horrific cost.

The U.S. lost nearly 2,300 service members in Afghanistan, and nearly 4,500 in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands were forever damaged. Those figures do not include at least 6,900 U.S. contractors and at least 43,000 Afghan and Iraqi troops who lost their lives.

The death toll in the countries the U.S. attacked remains untallied, but conservative estimates range from the hundreds of thousands to well over a million. Add to that the hundreds of people tortured in U.S. custody, and thousands killed by U.S. drones in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia.

The financial cost of the War on Terror is incalculable. The Iraq and Afghan wars, including the medical costs for veterans, are estimated to end up costing the U.S. at least $4 trillion dollars. Intelligence budgets have doubled, on top of more than $800 billion spent on “homeland security.”

Billions of dollars have been wasted on fruitless projects – like a failed plan to install radiation detectors at airports, which cost the government $230 million. The Department of Homeland Security wasted $1.1 billion on a “virtual fence” of sensors along the Mexican border before scrapping the program. The examples go on and on. The CIA paid one contractor $20 million to build a program that could discover encoded terrorist messages in Al Jazeera news broadcasts. Just last year, the Pentagon spent $43 million on one gas station in Afghanistan. Two contract psychologists were paid $80 million for designing the CIA’s torture program.

After 15 years, the only winners in the War on Terror have been the contractors.

At home, the War on Terror has become a Constitutional nightmare. The U.S. has adopted a practice of indefinitely detaining terror suspects. Police departments across the country secretly import military grade spy equipment. Courts have ruled that families cannot sue to get their children off government kill lists. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the U.S. has become the largest surveillance state in history.

In the 2016 presidential campaigns, torture has become one party’s applause line, in no small part due to President Obama’s failure to prosecute the architects of the Bush-era torture program.

Bombing multiple countries in the Middle East has become business as usual, and often goes unreported. On August 1, for example, the day the Obama administration announced a new bombing campaign against ISIS in Libya, American journalists were far more occupied with post-conventionelection polls than they were with the new war.

All of this foreshadows a war that could stretch 10, 20, or 50 more years. As the U.S. shifts its strategy towards bombing and away from ground troops, media engagement with the wars diminishes, and it is all too easy to forget about our permanent state of war. But the victims of U.S. violence are unlikely to forget, creating a potentially endless supply of new enemies.

Source: Fifteen Years After 9/11, Neverending War

Yes...if muslims would stop killing people we could stop fighting them....

 

[racialreality9]

The Muslims and white Americans are going to destroy each other.

How great is that! The rest of us just have to sit back and watch the show.

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

The Muslims and white Americans are going to destroy each other.

How great is that! The rest of of just have to sit back and watch the show.

You can go blow yourself up, too.

 

[LuckyDuck]

The Muslims and white Americans are going to destroy each other.

How great is that! The rest of of just have to sit back and watch the show.

Actually, the Muslims, white Americans, Europeans, Russians, Chinese, North Koreans, Hindu Indians and all others will eventually destroy themselves. I'm just guessing here, but I'm thinking that you're black. The Islamist terrorist are continually trying to obtain a nuclear weapon to smuggle into the west. Once obtained, smuggled in and detonated, thinking that blacks will somehow be immune from the destruction, is a bit, well....idiotic.

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

The Muslims and white Americans are going to destroy each other.

How great is that! The rest of of just have to sit back and watch the show.

Actually, the Muslims, white Americans, Europeans, Russians, Chinese, North Koreans, Hindu Indians and all others will eventually destroy themselves. I'm just guessing here, but I'm thinking that you're black. The Islamist terrorist are continually trying to obtain a nuclear weapon to smuggle into the west. Once obtained, smuggled in and detonated, thinking that blacks will somehow be immune from the destruction, is a bit, well....idiotic.

If you spend time in self-segregating black communities you'd know that those blacks think all things real world are 'white' issues.

 

[MikeK]

[...]

Today, U.S. military engagement in the Middle East looks increasingly permanent. Despite the White House having formally ended the wars Iraqand Afghanistan, thousands of U.S. troops and contractors remain in both countries. The U.S. is dropping bombs on Iraq and Syria faster than it can make them, and according to the Pentagon, its bombing campaign in Libya has “no end point at this particular moment.” The U.S. is also helping Saudi Arabia wage war in Yemen, in addition to conducting occasional airstrikes in Yemen and Somalia.

[...]

Therein lies the tale: Dropping bombs faster than we can make them -- along with the endless progression of other forms of wasteful and exorbitant military spending.

When the World Trade Center towers fell it is not hard to imagine the suppliers of military equipment doing a happy dance and discussing what the Bush Dynasty and Dick Cheney's share of the coming bounty will be.

Dwight Eisenhower warned us of this in his farewell address. Listen to it here:



And we paid no attention to what this great man had to say.

Shame!

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

[...]

Today, U.S. military engagement in the Middle East looks increasingly permanent. Despite the White House having formally ended the wars Iraqand Afghanistan, thousands of U.S. troops and contractors remain in both countries. The U.S. is dropping bombs on Iraq and Syria faster than it can make them, and according to the Pentagon, its bombing campaign in Libya has “no end point at this particular moment.” The U.S. is also helping Saudi Arabia wage war in Yemen, in addition to conducting occasional airstrikes in Yemen and Somalia.

[...]

Therein lies the tale: Dropping bombs faster than we can make them -- along with the endless progression of other forms of wasteful and exorbitant military spending.

When the World Trade Center towers fell it is not hard to imagine the suppliers of military equipment doing a happy dance and discussing what the Bush Dynasty and Dick Cheney's share of the coming bounty will be.

Dwight Eisenhower warned us of this in his farewell address. Listen to it here:



And we paid no attention to what this great man had to say.

Shame!

He was talking about not using defensive elements offensively.
Change the channel. MSNBC is a redundancy.

 

[GLASNOST]

Alex Emmons
Sep. 10 2016, 9:10 p.m.

IN THE DAYS after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when Congress voted to authorize military force against the people who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the hijackings .....

.... what? Wait a minute! What did the illegal invasion of Irak have to do with 'military force against the people who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the hijackings'?

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

Alex Emmons
Sep. 10 2016, 9:10 p.m.

IN THE DAYS after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when Congress voted to authorize military force against the people who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the hijackings .....

.... what? Wait a minute! What did the illegal invasion of Irak have to do with 'military force against the people who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the hijackings'?

So you think Hillary should be in jail for abetting the authorization of invading Iraq?

 

[Brynmr]

The Muslims and white Americans are going to destroy each other.

How great is that! The rest of us just have to sit back and watch the show.

Suck on cyanide, asswipe.

 

[Brynmr]

We can't even identify the enemy, let alone fight it properly.

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

We can't even identify the enemy, let alone fight it properly.

We can identify them. We're just not supposed to say it.

 

[Brynmr]

We can't even identify the enemy, let alone fight it properly.

We can identify them. We're just not supposed to say it.

Ok I'll say it - ISLAM

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

"After 15 years, the only winners in the War on Terror have been the contractors."

And the terrorists.

Whenever conservatives espouse their unwarranted hatred of Muslims, terrorists win.

Whenever conservatives advocate for a conventional ground war in the ME to ‘fight’ terrorism, terrorists win.

And whenever conservatives call for Muslim Americans to be subject to profiling and presume all Muslims are ‘guilty’ of supporting terrorism, or ‘predisposed’ to commit acts of terror, terrorists win.

 

[Brynmr]

"After 15 years, the only winners in the War on Terror have been the contractors."

And the terrorists.

Whenever conservatives espouse their unwarranted hatred of Muslims

It was at this point in your comment I started to nod off.