An inside account of U.S. military mistakes

A comment from another General, United States Marine Corps Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley D. Butler:

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Whoa Bertie!! Good Quote!! I am impressed. Yes, I recommend "War is a racket," for all these gung-ho-boots-on-the-ground hawks. It boogles my mind how the American People are bamboozled by the U.S. Military Industry. Like 'ole Smedley suggests, follow the money and find the real reason.

Again Bertie, great Quote! Oh, and you won't find "War is a racket" on the Commandants reading list. At least it wasn't the last time I looked. It would dilute the Koolaid they issue in Boot Camp.

All in all, what a waste of resources.

San_Diegan,

It is as you say, a terrible waste of resources, also a waste of time and mostly, a waste of life.

But then, for some, money is more important!

Building countries is hard when the occupants just want to play in rubble. No shame in trying though.

it's not even that complicated: the people you are trying to help hate you. When will the Americans and NATO understand that?

The imperial British and Soviets certainly learned that the hard way. The Americans are next.

JeffLee,

I get what you are saying about the British and Soviet failures in Afghanistan.

But then the Al Quaeda was a group of nutcases recruited, trained and armed by the CIA to get the Russkies out of Afghanistan. This backfired on the US. Thousands were killed. There was the US invasion of Iraq, based on the fertile imagination of Bush and gang. More were killed.

This was followed by the training and arming of an Iraq Defence Force to take over after the US troops left. It was a pushover for the ISIS to grab the weapons and point them the other way.

Which of these activities do you consider to be "help?"

"Which of these activities do you consider to be "help?""

"Help" as defined in the minds of the Americans. I was thinking about educating girls, the billions of dollars of assistance, etc. But actually, it's a massive wasted effort, and clearly everyone would have been better off without the invasions, nation-building. etc.

Americans say it doesn't matter who's in the White House...the politicians are all the same. In fact, it really, really, really matters, as in life and death for millions of people.

JeffLee,

Total agreement on what you write.

If all the money, time and resources had been put into peace making activities, we would have a Golden Age now.

Instead of something close to Armageddon.

scipantheist, many of these countries were NOT rubble until america stepped in and turned them into rubble.

An inside account of U.S. military mistakes

and there have been many. Has the USA ever won a war it entered except for the 1st and 2nd ?

Korea is a stalemate and not officially over, Vietnam a failure, Iraq a failure, Somalia a failure, Afghanistan a failure, war on drugs a failure, war on immigration a failure..........................

@StormR You're welcome to try your best shot. I assume you mean the 1st and 2nd world wars. Chances are your country has not had the courage or capability to fight an insurgency.

As a Vietnam Vet, I cannot applaud this man sufficiently.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

As a saying in some Latin american countries goes....

"News Flash....brought on a donkey!!!"

All of you posters are here today because of militarily wars which some brave men died for your freedom

'All of you posters are here today because of militarily wars which some brave men died for your freedom'

Oh, come on - cue the Star-Spangled Banner. Three examples. Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. One is a communist dictatorship and the other 2 are failed states. Nobody was made free through these debacles but plenty were left dead, poisoned and maimed. I've heard the crackpots on the right tell us that freedom comes at a cost. It seems like we got ripped off.

@Jimizo There was at least the faint possibility that each of those wars could have gone the opposite way, in which case people would have been made free. The jury is still out of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well. I don't disagree that these last two adventures were misguided but many people on this site use these just as an excuse to insult the US. Part of living in a democracy means you don't always get your way and the smartest decision isn't always carried out.

When you think about it ­­– and I have, every day since I figured out this war was lost – what undid us was not just our repetition of failed actions, hoping that this month, this year, this decade would be different. No, what finished us was our arrogance – our firm belief that with the likes of us in charge, experience could be ignored, evidence excused, and history damned.

Isn't that what donkeys are for - to put a leash around the lions? Brass tends to be less inclined to jeopardize their precious military machine than are politicians - particularly chicken hawks. America learned a lesson under GWB; we'll see just how long it takes America to completely forget it.

@scipantheist Please don't think I'm insulting the US. I've lived there and it's one of my favourite countries. I was furious at the decision of my own country, the UK, to join the US in the Iraq disgrace which was based on a pack of lies and sold by two slime balls who should be in jail. How anyone could be sold the ridiculous idea that this illegal bloodbath had the noble aim of bringing freedom to a country when both countries had armed and funded Saddam and been quite happy about his dictatorship for 2 decades is beyond me. Many decent Americans and Brits vehemently opposed the Iraq invasion ( another failed 'intervention' ) and I hope more will see the truth the next time the US government decides to bring freedom, democracy and the American way to selected dictatorships which it has moved into its shitlist. No more soldiers in body bags or hundreds of thousands dead or maimed, please.

The mistake was not in leaving Iraq (2011) and Afghanistan (2014); the mistake was in occupying the two countries, instead of going in, taking out Saddam and Osama, and then exiting. Occupying the two countries never should have been the mission, but that was a political decision, and not made by generals.

So, what we have is a failure of leadership by those who were elected to power. And who was it who made the decision to occupy those countries?

The US should not have gone into Iraq or Afghanistan to begin with, to start with saddam moved into Kuwait because of the US and oil and $s.

The US needs to stop trying to control the world its oil and is economies.

Find out the real reasons why saddam went to Kuwait, find out the real reasons why GW went into Iraq and Afghanistan.

The info is all there if you look.

Iglenn,

the mistake was in occupying the two countries, instead of going in, taking out Saddam and Osama, and then exiting.

Do you honestly think it's OK to invade another country and "take out" two people?

What do you think gives you this right?

Do you honestly think it's OK to invade another country and "take out" two people?

If that person or individuals like OBL or Saddam pose a threat to us,cue don't need to ask anyone's permission if it's ok to take out a person or not. I will say, if want to make the argument if the war in Iraq was worth it, that's a debatable question that will be on Historian minds for decades to come, I'm not going to quibble, I believed it was the best thing to get rid of both, good riddance! No one will miss either of them. But as far checking with the world if it's ok if we can or have the right to defend ourselves, they should kiss off.

What do you think gives you this right?

Because we can, very simple.

If that person or individuals like OBL or Saddam pose a threat to us

Sassan never posed a threat to America.

Strangerland,

Sassan never posed a threat to America

I think you mean Saddam Hussein.

But surely, he was the person who orchestrated 9/11, wasn't he?

I did. My Mac auto-corrected me. Thanks.

Sassan never posed a threat to America.

That's debatable, however he did allow terrorists to train in his country, turned a blind eye and that is what did pose a threat to us, therefore he needed to be removed, him and his murderous sons, that if given the chance to get into power would have been worse than Saddam.

That's debatable

No, it's not.

however he did allow terrorists to train in his country

No, he didn't.

Of course, it is debatable. Whether you agreed with it or not, the main point is, he's NOT there anymore, so that chapter is finished, Thank God!

And secondly, yes, he did.

Excuse me, but were you in Iraq, you worked or had access to the Pentagon? Seriously?

Bertie,

I happen to agree with you that it was a mistake to go into Iraq the second time, whether the excuse was to get rid of Saddam, or building democracy, or whatever convenient rationale the Bush Administration wanted to use. However, attempting to occupy the country after taking out Saddam was a blunder at least as big as invading in the first place, IMO. We can argue about the right to go into Iraq, but since the end of the Cold War there has not been a balance of power in the world, so whenever a Republican or a Democratic Hawk is in the White House, we can expect the US to invade whomever it wants to invade, whether or not it is right, or practical, or even in the best interests of the USA.

As for invading Afghanistan, our mistake was in doing it after OBL had already escaped to Pakistan. Taking down the Taliban should never have been our goal. Taking out OBL was a legitimate mission, but unfortunately that was not the mission chosen by Bush. IMO, we could have sent in the 5,000 troops available on ships offshore, surrounded Tora Bora and executed OBL, and then withdrew, all without going to war with the Taliban, who had, after all, already offered to turn OBL over to a third country for trial.

Saddam had things locked down. He wasn't permitting the training of terrorists in the country, and there has never been any non-faux-news evidence that he did.

Saddam proved no threat to the US because he has nothing with which to attack the US, and didn't have the means to do so.

Saddam had things locked down. He wasn't permitting the training of terrorists in the country, and there has never been any non-faux-news evidence that he did.

There has been more than enough evidence linking Saddam to allowing groups like Al Qaeda to train on his soil, I know libs want to write it it off, particularly right up to the war and removal of Saddam, but he did, nonetheless. They had the means and the connections. I'm just glad we don't need to worry about seeing or hearing from that butcher anymore. As for lockdown, it depends on who you are asking. Not for the Kurds, the Shiite population. How about his sons raping, murdering and dumping their bodies like trash or torturing and beating up their athletes for not winning any medals. His own daughter lying to her husband and turning him over to Saddam for trying to stage a coup and he gets executed! The whole family was scum and the world is a better place without them!

Of course, the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with oil, did it?

The US of A was acting to make the world safe for democracy, wasn't It?

This thread is about US military mistakes, the invasion(s) of Iraq and Afghanistan were surely mistakes. And mistakes that cost a lot of lives. There is no excuse for this.

@Bass Can you tell us why the US provided Saddam with conventional and chemical weapons for a million-dead war with Iran, left him there after he invaded Kuwait, tolerated his brutality for over 20 years and finally removed him when his worst crimes were long behind him?

Of course, the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with oil, did it?

I think you are confusing the US with China: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/world/middleeast/china-reaps-biggest-benefits-of-iraq-oil-boom.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I would have loved some of that oil and make no mistake the US could have zeroed out the population of Iraq if we were as brutal as you think we are.

Of course, the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with oil, did it?

No, it had to do with the removal of Saddam, pure and simple, let's not make it what it wasn't. On that note, I had NO problems with having him disposed.

The US of A was acting to make the world safe for democracy, wasn't It?

No, it was acting in the interest of self-preservation which we have every right to do.

This thread is about US military mistakes, the invasion(s) of Iraq and Afghanistan were surely mistakes. And mistakes that cost a lot of lives. There is no excuse for this.

But removing Saddam and killing OBL wasn't a mistake.

bass4funk well so far looking at the turmoil in Iraq it looks like it was, saddam was killing hundreds but since he has gone 100s of thousands have perished and now the vacumn has been taken up by ISIS, I think saddam was better than them.

"In the end, they knew we would never stay for the decades it takes to prevail over an entrenched insurgency co-mingled with unhappy, suspicious civil populations. They lived there. We didn’t. And our record was clear, as shown in Vietnam in 1975, "

How does one get to be a general without realizing all that just as I did in 2001?

I did not go to West Point. I just sat in some public school history lessons about America in Vietnam and Russia in Afghanistan. What more does one really need?

" the superb troops that make up our skilled armed forces."

Hubris. Is that what you need to be an American general?

One might applaud the hindsight if it were just not so damned little do damned late. Its a lot easier to forgive someone who signed up as a teenager and saw the light later, but not a general, a man of sufficient age.

Besides, as far as he has come in what he said, there was what he did not even talk about, and that was the fact that America never had a particular beef with the Taliban anyway. The war was not only stupidly directed, it was also needless and immoral. I hate the Taliban, but its still their country, and not ours. And love them or hate them, they were stabilizing Afghanistan.

"America never had a particular beef with the Taliban anyway."

Unfortunately, that is not the issue. Under the Bush administration, the "strategy" switched to nation building. So now, Westerners are getting killed for the sake of Afghanistan's "civil society," ie, sending girls to school, etc. And we will continue to die for that dusty pile of rubble, where most of the population hate us and want us to leave.