ALL ABOUT BIN LADEN (6 OF 6): WHAT'S NEXT FOR THE "WAR ON TERROR"?

From USA Today courtesy of the Huffington Post:

Strain on forces in the field at a five-year high

U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan are experiencing some of the greatest psychological stress and lowest morale in five years of fighting, reports a military study.

"We're an Army that's in uncharted territory here," says Gen. Peter Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff, who has focused on combat stress. "We have never fought for this long with an all-volunteer force that's 1% of the population."

Mental health strain was most severe among veterans of three or more deployments, with a third of those showing signs of psychological problems defined as either stress, depression or anxiety, the report obtained by USA TODAY says.

The research, based on a survey of soldiers and Marines in 2010, also found that the praise the troops have for their unit sergeants has never been higher as the United States approaches the 10th year of its longest war.

The report says decline in individual morale is significant: 46.5% of troops said they had medium, high or very high morale, compared with 65.7% who said that in 2005. About one in seven soldiers — and one in five Marines — reported high or very high morale.

More here.

So you already know what I think. I was opposed to both wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, almost from the beginning--I spent two days after the initial invasion of Afghanistan thinking I favored it, that we had no other option, but quickly changed my mind when one of my high school kids, a young anarchist, passionately argued against it; sometimes the teacher becomes the student. Both wars have been total disasters. We would have been much better off making friends with angry Muslims, figuring out their demands, sending in lots of aid, ending support for the violent dictators they're currently in the process of overthrowing, getting off the oil so we don't have to exploit the Middle East, pursuing sensible security measures to deal with terrorism, which can never really be ended, and on and on. The world would look very different today if we had taken that course ten years ago.

But no. We went to war. And we're still at war. We've wasted thousands of lives and trillions of dollars--tax money that could have been given to the states to pay teacher salaries has instead gone to kill Muslims; Republicans, who have always supported the war, are now telling us that we need to do away with medical care for the elderly in order to continue the killing abroad. We were already a sick nation back in 2001. Now we're worse. And there is no end in sight to this ghastly enterprise.

The ostensible reason for this "War on Terror" has now evaporated. Al Qaeda was broken up long ago. Bin Laden is dead. Terrorism continues. But so what? War can't end terrorism. You can only wage war against nations, against armies. You can't wage war against a tactic. It's like fighting a "War on Karate." It was always a foolish metaphor that has, at best, done nothing but confuse people, and, at worst, sickened our minds further still. And we will keep on fighting, even though the stated goals for our fighting have been achieved.

We will fight because the defense industry needs to sell weapons, and they send legions of lobbyists to Washington to see their will done. We will fight because the oil industry wants to keep making hundreds of billions of dollars, and, as the federal fucking around in the wake of the BP oil spill last year showed us, there is very little difference between the oil industry and the federal government. We will fight because numerous establishment individuals, from both parties, and in the corporate press, have bought the neoconservative point of view that we should always be fighting because that's what unifies us as a nation. We will keep fighting because we have the biggest and most expensive military in the world--when your best tool is a hammer, all problems start to look like a nail. We will keep fighting because the US public has been socialized to believe that war is like a football game, and our team is Florida State or Alabama.

And we will keep fighting because most Americans don't have to personally deal with the savage brutalities of war; we've contracted all that out to the tiny portion of the population that is now essentially a new socioeconomic group, the Military Class--they bear the suffering, not the rest of us, out of sight, out of mind. But how much longer can we keep abusing these people who have sworn to put their lives on the line for their country? I'm amazed they haven't yet reached their breaking point.

In short, the "War on Terror," like the "War on Drugs" before it, is now a bedrock institution of the United States. It has a life of its own. Nobody in the ruling class has any incentive whatsoever to do away with it. Quite the reverse, the same incentives that got us into it in the first place are still there. And the payoff for pushing all war all the time is quite lucrative to the individuals who embrace it.

So we just won the "War on Terror." Unfortunately, the carnage will continue long after I'm buried and gone.

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