No one wins war, we all lose.
EVERYONE LOSES IN WAR. THERE ARE NO "VICTORS" IN WAR.
War is the ultimate human stupidity. To believe killing and destruction helps any situation is simply ridiculous. Lives are lost, trillions of dollars wasted in a way to make us miss opportunities to spend money for better purposes.
We all need to be vigilant in 2019 and beyond to discern lies, and find the truth. In an age of deceit, greed, technological manipulation, and social media dominance of all we do, everyone is more vulnerable to Gaslighting and fear mongering than ever.
"All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception and the Spirit of I. F. Stone"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Governments_Lie:_Truth,_Deception_and_the_Spirit_of_I._F._Stone
"The film describes how Independent journalist I. F. Stone (1907–89) pioneered the practice of investigative journalism, digging into public records and back-page stories to track down information. We see the challenges these reporters face as they try to go beneath the surface. Frey documents the cover-up of undocumented burials of people killed while crossing the U.S./Mexico border. Bonus features include extended interviews. The film looks at independent journalists' investigations of governments dating back to the 1960s and manages to retain a nonpartisan point of view.[2]"
Sensible people, not my Air Force LTGEN "genius" using his death rays in space, or equivalent "smart" people in government, know war, THEY KNOW war is the most idiotic thing humans can do.
Truly smart, and more mature people like William Blum, now deceased sadly, called out America's bellicosity, may he rest in peace. Many, may others, William McNamara, also deceased, for example, have indicted war as pure idiocy.
The Afghanistan war now joins the annals of historically stupid wars.
"Dear subscriber,
The project we are publishing this week on Afghanistan demonstrates the indispensable role that journalism plays in a democracy. We seek to uncover the truth about difficult subjects of national import. We are undeterred by obstacles erected by government or other powerful interests. And when we obtain revelatory original documents, we make them available and easily accessible so that Americans can see for themselves what has been done in their name.
The Afghanistan Papers make clear that presidents, generals and diplomats systematically failed to tell the truth about the longest war in U.S. history. The Post sued twice for release of confidential documents during a three-year legal battle, obtaining 2,000 pages of unpublished transcripts and summaries from 428 interviews conducted during a federal project on lessons from the war effort. The government identified 62 interviewees. We are still in court seeking 366 names that remain blacked out.
Please read The Afghanistan Papers. Support from subscribers like you enable us to do our work — thank you.
Sincerely,
Martin Baron, executive editor"
Here are some quotes from William Blum, which cover a lot, to include false narratives about war, and about democracy.
"William Blum > Quotes
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/44309.William_Blum
William Blum quotes Showing 1-30 of 40
“The "trickle-down" theory: the principle that the poor, who must subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich bigger meals.”
― William Blum
“No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine.”
― William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
“Most terrorists are people deeply concerned by what they see as social, political, or religious injustice and hypocrisy, and the immediate grounds for their terrorism is often retaliation for an action of the United States.”
― William Blum
“Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.”
― William Blum, America's Deadliest Export
“The United States is not concerned with this thing called ‘democracy’, no matter how many times every American president uses the word each time he opens his mouth. As noted in the Introduction, since 1945 the US has attempted to overthrow more than fifty governments, most of which were democratically elected, and grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least thirty countries.”
― William Blum, America's Deadliest Export
“The United States is not actually against terrorism per se, only those terrorists who are not allies of the empire.”
― William Blum, America's Deadliest Export
“Michael Parenti has observed: The objective is not just power for its own sake but power to insure plutocratic control of the planet, power to privatize and deregulate the economies of every nation in the world, to hoist upon the backs of peoples everywhere – including the people of North America – the blessings of an untrammeled ‘free market’ corporate capitalism. The struggle is between those who believe that the land, labor, capital, technology, and markets of the world should be dedicated to maximizing capital accumulation for the few, and those who believe that these things should be used for the communal benefit and socio-economic development of the many.16”
― William Blum, America's Deadliest Export
Here is what McNamara admitted about Viet Nam:
"McNamara's Confession
RICHARD REEVES, Universal Press Syndicate
Published 4:00 am PDT, Thursday, April 13, 1995
https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/McNamara-s-Confession-3037199.php
"FOR ALMOST 25 years, Robert S. McNamara, the secretary of defense during most of the war in Vietnam, refused to speak about his role in the events of 1961 to 1967. I know this because I was one of the people who tried to get him to do it, interviewing him last in 1990. But now he has written a book about it, titled "In Retrospect -- The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam." I have never read anything quite like it, a savage attack on one's self. Yes, yes, it was me, please forgive me! McNamara the Sure is no longer sure of anything, and he is throwing himself on America's mercy.
"Why after all these years of silence am I convinced I should speak?" he writes. "There are many reasons: The main one is that I have grown sick at heart witnessing the cynicism and even contempt with which many of our people view our political institutions.""
Richard sums it up:
"What is McNamara's "lesson" from this "tragedy," then? To me, it is that Americans on both sides of the divisive national debate on Vietnam should not wait until they are 78 (McNamara's age) to tell the truth about what happened then. The war was foolish, perhaps pointless, but many of us are still trying to justify what we did or did not do then. Or, we are trying to have it both ways."
To balance the picture, possibly, here's a retrospective on McNamara's confession, albeit from one who could only read about what transpired vs live what transpired.
"Thoughts Engendered by Robert McNamara's In Retrospect"
Revisiting Vietnam (1)
Harold P. Ford
We see history repeating itself in 2019, and, sadly, America is being told the media is the enemy. In this case, the media is your best friend as TRILLIONS of dollars have been wasted for no good end in Afghanistan.
"The Afghanistan Papers A secret history of the war"
"At war with the truth"
U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found.
By Craig Whitlock Investigative reporter Dec. 9, 2019
