Answer: Not one single one of them. --- other than Ron Paul On Mar 20, 12:55 pm, MJ <[email protected]> wrote: > Tuesday, March 20, 2012Conservative Responsibility for Iraq and Afghanistanby > Jacob G. Hornberger > Among the favorite mantras of conservatives is With freedom comes > responsibility. They love to hurl it at liberals whenever they point to the > disastrous failure of the welfare state. When liberals cry, Please, judge us > by our good intentions, not by the actual results of our policies, > conservatives respond, No, good intentions mean nothing. What matters is the > damage and destructiveness your policies have caused. You liberals must take > personal responsibility for what you have wrought. > That s all fine and good, but there is at least one big problem here: The > refusal of conservatives to apply their mantra to themselves -- their refusal > to take personal responsibility for the damage and destructiveness of their > own policies. > A good example is now playing out in Afghanistan. In the wake of the massacre > of 16 people in Afghanistan, including women and children, and the burning of > those Korans, an increasing number of conservatives are finally saying that > it s time to pull the troops out of Afghanistan. > But how many of them are accepting personal responsibility for the horrific > consequences of the U.S. Empire s undeclared wars and occupations of Iraq and > Afghanistan? > Answer: Not one single one of them. > After all, while the neocons were the principal cheerleaders for the Afghan > and Iraq wars, the truth is that the conservative movement was right behind > them. When we libertarians opposed the wars on both countries, conservatives > went on the attack. > With respect to Iraq, conservatives placed their full faith in President Bush > s pronouncements that Saddam Hussein was about to unleash a WMD attack on the > United States. When we libertarians pointed out the ridiculous and deceptive > nature of the president s claims, conservatives accused of us being > unpatriotic and weak. > Then, when those WMDs failed to materialize, conservatives went on the attack > again, seamlessly shifting to a welfare rationale for the Iraq invasion -- > that the U.S. invaded to bring democracy to the Iraqi people. > What are conservatives saying today? One thing they re doing is dredging up > the standard line on the U.S. invasion of Vietnam -- that the troops haven t > been permitted to win the war -- that they ve had to fight with one hand tied > behind them -- that the generals should have been given free rein without > interference from the politicians. > But conservatives are engaging in deception, including self-deception, just > as they did during the Vietnam War. > First of all, it s not a war in Afghanistan. It s an occupation. The war in > Afghanistan ended some 10 years ago on the day that the Afghan government was > defeated and removed from power. The war in Iraq also ended around a decade > ago when the Saddam Hussein regime was defeated and removed from power. > On those days, the U.S. government won the wars. The president could have > then ordered all U.S. troops to return home. But, conservatives say, that > would have been a bad thing to do because then the bad guys could return to > power. It was necessary, they said, that U.S. troops occupy both countries in > order to install friendly, pro-U.S. regimes, even if they were unelected, > fraudulent, dictatorial, and just as brutal as the regimes they were > replacing. > So, occupations was always inextricably interlinked with the invasions. This > is one of the things what we libertarians kept telling people prior to the > invasions, but conservatives claimed that it would all be pretty, > paradisiacal, and cheap. > How many people have been killed and maimed in Iraq? We don t know. While > claiming to be acting for the good of the Iraqi people (after those scary > WMDs failed to materialize), the U.S. Empire steadfastly refused to keep > count of the Iraqi wounded and dead. All that mattered were U.S. casualties. > The attitude was that any number of Iraqi dead and maimed would be worth > bringing democracy to the country and the Middle East. We re doing it for > them, conservatives cried. > Keep in mind that of all the Iraqis killed, maimed, tortured, humiliated, and > abused, not one single one had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks. > Keep in mind also that the reason that the U.S. Empire invaded Afghanistan is > not that Afghanistan participated in the 9/11 attacks by harboring > terrorists. That s just more deception. It invaded Afghanistan because the > Taliban regime refused to comply with President Bush s unconditional > extradition demand for Osama bin Laden. > Keep in mind also that under our form of government, both of these wars were > illegal given that they both lacked the constitutionally required > congressional declaration of war. > Conservatives are now saying that that Army sergeant snapped because of his > multiple deployments to Iraq. But it was conservatives who were supporting > those multiple deployments. During the past 10 years, whenever we > libertarians called for supporting the troops by bringing them home, we were > reviled by conservatives, who said, Support the troops! Keep them right where > they are! With supporters like that, who needed enemies? > In their heated analysis of that sergeant s recent actions, conservatives > fail to consider one important factor: guilt -- deeply seated guilt. After > all, most people are not cut out to kill other people without cause. That s > what conscience is all about. How can ordinary people kill other people, none > of whom had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks, and not expect that it s > going to have an adverse psychological effect on the killers? Where in the > Bible does God say that it s okay to kill people for the sake of democracy? > The federal officials who used the troops for these two imperialist, welfare > escapades -- along with their conservative and neoconservative cheerleaders > -- are co-responsible for the horrific consequences of these misadventures. > Iraq should never have been invaded and occupied. The Iraqi people, including > the countless dead, had a right to be left alone by the Empire. > And as conservatives are hopefully starting to realize, we libertarians were > right about Afghanistan too. It was a horrible mistake to employ a military > solution to address the 9/11 attacks, specifically through the invasion and > occupation of Afghanistan. Most of the Afghan people who have been killed and > maimed in Afghanistan had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. They had the > right to continue living their lives unmolested by the Empire. All that death > and destruction has done nothing but produce a machine of anger and hatred, > which has manifested itself in the perpetual threat of terrorist > counterattacks, which have then been used to suspend our civil liberties here > at home. > Moreover, conservatives are wrong about the troops having had one hand tied > behind them. For 10 years, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military > has been given free rein to kill as many people as it wanted. The problem is > that the more people it killed and maimed, the more people became angry and > vengeful. The occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq became the greatest > terrorist-producing machine in history. > As the occupation of Afghanistan begins to inevitably wind down, we > libertarians must renew our battle to dismantle America s military empire and > restore a constitutional republic to our land. The imperialists, including > big government conservatives, will undoubtedly oppose us, even as they do > their best to stir up new crises to justify the existence of their > big-government military empire. Unfortunately, while doing so, they repeating > the refrain of their liberal big-government counterparts: Please, judge us by > our good intentions, not by the actual results of our policies. > Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation. > P.S. Yesterday,I wroteabout the panel I participated in last weekend at the > Left Forum, a big liberal conference in New York City. Kelley Vlahos, who was > one of the panelists, has written a nice article about the panel and the > conference. It can be > accessedhere.http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2012-03-20.asp
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