Quagmires, sunk costs and apple pie
by digby
There is never a time when our humanitarian war makers want to call it a day. Once we’ve “sacrificed” American lives we have all these sunk costs and we must “see it through.” Every damned time.
Here’s our good friend the Very Serious Iraq war hawk Michael O’Hanlon making the case for us to own Afghanistan forever:
And finally, let’s not forget the progress purchased so dearly in this decade and more of war. We must not permit Mr. Karzai’s pique to flush all this down the drain. The United States can ride this one out. And given the enduring American strategic interests in this part of the world, as well as our huge sacrifice, that’s exactly what we should do. In the end, this is about the American and the Afghan peoples, not about Hamid Karzai.
“Ride it out” is an interesting euphemism for continuing a military occupation.
Anyway, Charles Pierce makes the obvious Westmoreland analogy much more colorfully than I ever could and then concludes:
Jesus H. Christ on the bill at the Fillmore, it’s 1967 all over again. And, not for nothing, but there once was a country in that region where women were comparatively free. That was Iraq. Then, Michael O’Hanlon and his friends helped euchre us into a war there and now, well, not so much for that women’s rights thing. Turns out Poppy Bush was right. We have kicked The Vietnam Syndrome. We punted it all the way into the Brookings Institution.
Maybe one of these days the Very Serious People will convince our government to do something that won’t make things worse. It hasn’t happened yet in my lifetime, but I’m sure it must be possible.
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