Tag: 9/11

In Praise of TomDispatch

W.J. Astore

Tom Engelhardt Is the Post-9/11 Generation’s I.F. Stone

Today’s post has a simple goal: to praise TomDispatch, a regular, reliable, and highly effective “antidote to the mainstream media.”

Its creator, editor, and chief author, Tom Engelhardt, founded the site soon after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Its remarkable longevity and brilliant perspicacity testifies to his integrity, his character, indeed his patriotism and his humanity.

What I.F. Stone was to the Vietnam generation, Tom Engelhardt has been to the post-9/11 one. If more Americans had read his articles and truly listened to his words of wisdom, disastrous wars like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan would never have happened, and America itself would be a far better place.

Tom began his site as a simple Listserv. Soon after 9/11, he started by putting together lists of articles he’d read, together with some commentary of his own, sharing those links and thoughts via email with friends and other interested parties. An early article that stuck in his mind (that he mentioned to me) concerned America’s bombing raids against Afghanistan in 2001, attacks that would serve mainly “to bounce the rubble” there. (Afghanistan had already been the site of a devastating war in the 1980s conducted by the Soviet Union.)

Quickly, Tom’s Listserv messages proved popular, focusing as they so often did on the folly and fallacies of American empire. A colleague suggested that he should create a website featuring his “tomgrams.” Though not a tech or computer wiz, Tom embraced the challenge, overseeing the founding of a dedicated site for original articles that would serve as “a regular antidote to the mainstream media.”

Tom has now been posting his tomgrams for 22 years, usually three original pieces each week, on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. It’s the side job that took over his life, he ruefully admits. (Tom has been a longtime editor for several publishing houses, as well as writing several of his own books, notably “The End of Victory Culture,” which I highly recommend.)

I first started writing for TomDispatch in 2007. I recently posted my 106th article at the site. Tom has made me work! He features articles that are typically 2000 words or longer, articles that often include a dozen or more links that readers can follow to confirm facts and deepen their knowledge. Each article Tom posts goes through a rigorous process of editing, far more so, it seems, than many print magazines use nowadays. Typically, when I write for Tom, he edits my pieces, after which three proofreaders offer their own suggestions and corrections, all of which I review along with Tom. It’s a laborious process that produces consistently high-quality pieces at the site.

If you’re a regular reader of his site, you’ll have noticed that Tom writes introductions to nearly every piece he posts at TomDispatch. Some of his intros end up being essays in their own right. He is seemingly inexhaustible.

Tom Engelhardt, the creator of TomDispatch, with the author

Articles initially posted at TomDispatch usually go to many other sites. My most recent piece for Tom went to Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Information Clearing House, The Nation, ZNet, and LA Progressive, among other sites. Most of these are broadly liberal or progressive, but Lew Rockwell, a libertarian site, picked up my last piece as well. In the past, mainstream sites like CBS News have picked up and posted TomDispatch pieces, and three of my “tomgrams” earned a mention in the New York Times (here and here and here). Another one was posted (in shorter form) by the LA Times. All this is to say that TomDispatch’s reach far exceeds that of the site itself.

It’s amazing the network of readers and publishers Tom has built over the last 20+ years. I’m amazed as well at how some of my articles have been translated into foreign languages, including German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (in Brazil), Danish, Czech, and Arabic. Honestly, I never thought I’d be so widely read, and I owe that to Tom, who saw in 2001 the need for an alternative to the mainstream media soon after the events of 9/11 and all the mindless patriotic hoopla that followed. 

What makes TomDispatch unique? Certainly, the length and rigor of its pieces. Most sites nowadays post shorter works of 600 words or fewer. I’m also struck by the diversity of authors at the site. And, if I may, I wish to applaud Tom for seeking out military and government dissenters, military officers like Andrew Bacevich and Danny Sjursen and State Department dissenters like Peter Van Buren. And Tom has enlisted people like Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Adam Hochschild, and so many other authors for whom he’s served as an editor.

(Check out Tom’s incredible list of authors since 2002 here.)

Later this year, Tom will celebrate his 80th birthday. He tells me TomDispatch is nearing its end, that soon, perhaps in the next year or two, it’ll post its last article. When it does, a bright light of stimulating discourse and informed dissent will be extinguished. America will be worse for it.

I urge you to dip into the TomDispatch archive. It begins in 2002 and comes forward to the present day. Read a few articles, especially on war, militarism, and empire. And tell me: Isn’t it amazing how much Tom saw that those in officialdom either didn’t see or refused to see?

Israel, America, and Going “Massive”

W.J. Astore

Using Terror Attacks as an Excuse to Kill Indiscriminately

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on America in 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld knew exactly what to do: “go massive.” Al Qaeda’s “shock and awe” attacks were an opportunity for the Bush/Cheney administration not only to strike against “terror” but against Saddam Hussein and Iraq, possibly even Iran, even though those countries had no role in 9/11. Here’s how Rumsfeld put it:

“Hard to get good case [against Iraq]. Need to move swiftly. Near term target needs – go massive – sweep it all up, things related and not.”

Going “massive” had another benefit: it distracted Americans from the colossal failure of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld to keep America safe, to anticipate and prevent the Al Qaeda attacks. Americans rallied around the flag and asked few questions as Congress gave the president a blank check to wage a “global war on terror.”

Something similar is happening in Israel today. The Hamas terror attacks are giving Bibi Netanyahu and the hard right in Israel an opportunity to “go massive,” to “sweep it all up, things related and not.” This has the added virtue of distracting Israelis from the colossal failure of Netanyahu in anticipating and preventing the Hamas attacks. Like their American counterparts, Israelis are tending to rally around the flag as their government is given a blank check (supported by the USA) to wage a war on terror in Gaza.

Of course, a war on terror is a war of terror, which is what we’re witnessing in Gaza. Massive Israeli bombing. Deaths that will soon exceed ten thousand. Widespread hunger, thirst, and suffering. Massive displacement of Palestinians from their homes. All justified because Israel was attacked, and not just attacked but embarrassed, as America was embarrassed on 9/11.

Consider these satellite images from Gaza showing massive destruction from Israeli bombing.

Broadly speaking, the USA and Israel share a conceit of being God’s chosen people and also of having the world’s finest and best military forces. These conceits were challenged respectively by the success of the Al Qaeda and Hamas terror attacks. Embarrassment coupled with anger and revenge leads to going “massive,” irrespective of wisdom or legality (or morality). Going “massive” is also a great CYA exercise, as in covering your ass.

Now is the time, these failed leaders decide, to punish “evildoers,” innocent people be damned. What matters is violence, action, vengeance, settling scores, irrespective of human rights and the so-called rules-based international order. It’s time to kill.

If history doesn’t quite repeat itself, it surely does echo as Israel, much like the USA after 9/11, goes “massive” and kills innocents while claiming it’s all in the cause of self-defense and justice.

War Destroys History

W.J. Astore

The God of War Consumes All

The ancients were wise to make war a god. Violent, unpredictable, destructive, seductive, brutal, and capricious. And of course very, very powerful in its hold on the human mind.

Ares, the Greek god of war

I trained as a historian, where an understanding of facts, context, and other forms of evidence is all-important. War destroys history. War creates its own “facts.” Who needs context when you hear the cry: “We’re at war!”

Consider the Russia-Ukraine War. Americans are encouraged to believe the war began with Putin’s invasion in February 2022. All you need to know is that Putin is evil and that he wants to conquer and subjugate Ukraine. A bit of history is introduced by equating Putin with Hitler; sometimes you see claims that Putin is “worse than Hitler.” But that’s about all the “history” you’re encouraged to know.

To follow the war, you might go to the Guardian, which tells me this is Day 596 of Putin’s invasion. Again, it’s implied that what came before Putin’s decision to invade simply doesn’t matter.  NATO expansion to Russia’s borders, for example, is dismissed as irrelevant. Russia shouldn’t have felt threatened by benevolent, peace-loving NATO. Nor do you need to know anything about U.S. meddling in Ukrainian politics. Focus on the war, cheer on the Ukrainians, and see all Russians as guilty, more or less, even Russian opera singers and tennis players.

Consider as well the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Again, Americans are encouraged to believe the war began with terrorist attacks by Hamas. All you need to know is that Hamas is engaged in “pure, unadulterated evil” (President Biden) and that Israel must defend itself however it deems fit. Hamas is evil, Israel is good, end of story.

Americans saw this with 9/11 and the Bush/Cheney response to it. President Bush encouraged us to believe that Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. because they hated us for our freedoms. They hate us because they ain’t us, simple as that. Meanwhile, Bush told the world you’re either for us or you’re for the terrorists.

War is the great and terrifying simplifier. We go to war shouting “Remember the Alamo!” or “Remember the Maine; to hell with Spain!” or “Remember Pearl Harbor!” with vengeance on our minds. There’s no need to think. There no need to seek any understanding. Who cares about history and context? It’s time to kill-kill-kill. That’s the only language *they* understand, because they’re pure evil even as we represent pure goodness. Our wrath is righteous and measured; their wrath is unbounded and insane, evil, the work of “human animals.”

Recall what Congresswoman Barbara Lee said when she cast the lone vote of dissentafter 9/11. Instead of authorizing a blank check of support for Bush/Cheney and U.S. military action everywhere, Lee advised restraint and asked a nation in mourning to pause. Citing a clergy member, she memorably cautioned that “as we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore.” Her speech was a profile in courage for which she was widely attacked and condemned.

What followed 9/11 was an orgy of violence by the U.S., a global war on terror akin to a jihad, producing the Afghan War, the Iraq War, Libya’s collapse into chaos, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, the collateral murder video, torture, and so many other deplorable acts. Yet we as Americans are told by our leaders and the mainstream media to forget these “excesses,” these “mistakes,” because we meant well and we had no choice but to respond to evil terrorists with massive military might.

And so now Israel, aided by the U.S., faces the same choice: how best to respond to a terrorist attack. And it appears their response will be an exercise in massive military might. Because history doesn’t matter. The god of war has taken over. And that god demands vengeance. Violence. Blood sacrifice.

Yet there is wisdom in the Bible when it says (Romans 12:19-21):

Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

Let’s (Not) Go To War!

W.J. Astore

Remember the days when America had to be attacked before it went to war? And when it did, it made formal Congressional declarations of the same?

In December 1941, the Japanese attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor as well as elsewhere in the Pacific. In response to those attacks, President Franklin Roosevelt asked Congress for a formal declaration of war. Nazi Germany then declared war on the U.S., after which the U.S. responded in kind. Compared to the future wars of U.S. empire, Americans were generally united and had some understanding of what the war (World War II, of course) was about.

We haven’t had that kind of unity and clarity since 1945, which is certainly the biggest reason America has suffered so many setbacks and defeats in unpromising places like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. In all three of those places, there really wasn’t a clear and compelling cause for war, hence there was no Congressional declaration of the same. Hmm … maybe that should have told us something?

In Vietnam, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution by Congress followed on the heels of an “attack” that had never happened. In Iraq, the “evil dictator” didn’t have the weapons of mass destruction we accused him of having, nor had he played any role in the 9/11 attacks. In Afghanistan, the Taliban had played a secondary role in providing a safe haven to Osama bin Laden prior to 9/11, but it was Al Qaeda, not the Taliban, that was behind the 9/11 attacks.

Indeed, since 15 of the 19 Al Qaeda terrorists were Saudi, as well as their leader, Osama bin Laden, it would have made much more sense to have declared war on Saudi Arabia and invade that country than to have invaded Afghanistan. Of course, it made no sense at all to have declared a general “war on terror,” and rather unsurprisingly, that 20-year-war has only succeeded in spreading terror further.

Now we turn to today’s situation between Russia and Ukraine. Frankly, I don’t see a border dispute between these two countries as constituting a major threat to U.S. national security. It’s certainly no reason for America to go to war. Yet the Biden Administration is taking a hard line with its economic sanctions, its weapons shipments, and its troop deployments to the region.

Somehow, America’s leaders seem to think that such actions will deter, or at least punish, Russia and its leader. But there’s another possibility, one equally as likely, that sanctions and weapons and troops will lead to escalation and a wider war, and for what reason? A Russian-Ukrainian border dispute? This dispute might resolve itself if the U.S. and NATO just had the sense and patience to mind its own business.

A rush to war made sense in 1941, when the U.S. faced powerful and implacable enemies that were focused on its destruction. It hasn’t made sense since then, nor does it make sense today.

In short, let’s not go to war.

Never Forget — What?

W.J. Astore

The 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks has come and gone. The theme I often heard was “never forget.” Never forget what, exactly? That we were attacked? All of us of a certain age remember 9/11. We remember where we were when we first heard the news. We remember the shock, the confusion, the sense of loss. We really don’t need to be reminded to “never forget.”

A similar phrase is “always remember.” Like “never forget,” it’s remarkably labile, much like Obama’s slogans of “hope” and “change.” And that’s the point. It’s vague while being emotive. It plays on our emotions without encouraging us to think.

So, let’s think critically for a moment. What should we “never forget”? We should never forget the victims, of course. The heroes. The first responders who gave their lives. And, by the way, why is Congress always so reluctant to provide health care to those first responders who worked so tirelessly in the dangerously unhealthy rubble of the Twin Towers? Let’s not forget them in their moments of need.

But what else shouldn’t we forget and “always remember”? I think we should remember the colossal failure of the Bush/Cheney administration to act on intelligence that indicated Al Qaeda was determined to strike in the U.S. We should remember the chaos generated by those attacks, and how our government responded so slowly, and with a measure of panic. And we should remember how quickly men like Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld deflected any blame and took no responsibility for what can only be described as a massive defeat.

Also, it’s important to recall that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals, yet America’s leaders chose to invade Afghanistan and Iraq after announcing a global war on terror. In short, they used 9/11 as a pretext to embark on wars that they wanted to fight, wars of choice that proved disastrous, and for which they’ve largely evaded responsibility.

As a military historian, I’m also taken aback by our leaders choosing to rebrand 9/11 as “Patriot Day.” When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, America’s leaders didn’t rebrand that day as an occasion for patriotism. They recognized it was a date of infamy and declared war on the attacker.

It’s almost as if 9/11 has become a date of victimhood for the U.S. An old Air Force buddy of mine put it well recently in a message to me:

“It felt like it wasn’t about remembrance as much as just wallowing in self-pity. Interesting you bring up Pearl Harbor. Back then we went off and fought a 4-year war, beat our enemy, and helped them rebuild. For 9/11, we went off and fought a 20-year war, came home with our tails between our legs, and left our enemy more empowered. A celebration of victimhood, but not of honor.”

I like my friend’s appeal to honor. It’s an old-fashioned word that you hear rarely in America’s offices and corridors of power. Where is the honor in turning the 9/11 calamity into some kind of celebration of victimhood and patriotism?

As a historian, of course I want 9/11 to be remembered. But let’s not allow propaganda and cheap sentiment to shape our memories. And let’s “never forget” the failures of our leaders both before and after that date of infamy.

Twenty Years After 9/11

W.J. Astore

When the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001, I was at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.  I was in my car, listening to the radio, just outside the North Gate, where a B-52 sits on static display as a symbol of American power. The first reports suggested it was an accident, but it soon became apparent it was a deliberate act.  As a second and then a third plane hit the WTC and the Pentagon, I remember hearing speculation that 9/11 could have a higher death toll than the Battle of Antietam, the single bloodiest day of the U.S. Civil War.  It was bad enough, if not that bad.

I remember confusion and chaos in the government, and the use of the word “folks” by President George W. Bush to describe the hijackers.  Very quickly, his rhetoric changed, and soon America would be launched on a global crusade against terrorists and other evildoers.

The flags came out and America came together, but that team spirit, so to speak, was quickly seized upon and exploited by Bush/Cheney to justify war anywhere and everywhere.  Good will was squandered and wise counsel was rejected in a calculated plot for power-projection disguised as righteous vengeance. Sweep everything up, related and unrelated, go big: those were the sentiments of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and crew.  They had failed so badly at protecting America on 9/11; they were not going to fail to use 9/11 for their own nefarious purposes.

And now, 20 years later, we’re witnessing how badly their hubris and dishonesty have damaged democracy in America, as well as damaging or destroying millions of lives around the globe.

After finishing my tour at the AF Academy in 2002, I became the Dean of Students at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey. I wonder how many of “my” young troops who so proudly crossed the stage with newly acquired language skills in Pashto and Dari and Arabic never made it home from Bush and Cheney’s GWOT, their “global war on terror.”

9/11 remains a traumatic day for America. It’s a day we remember where we were and what we were doing when we first learned of this horrific attack on our country. However briefly, 9/11 brought America together, but militarism and constant warfare along with prejudice and ignorance have served only to weaken our democracy while impoverishing our country.

This madness was on my mind as I recently re-watched “The City on the Edge of Forever,” a classic Star Trek episode in which history’s changed when Dr. McCoy travels back in time to 1930s America.  Here he saves the life of Edith Keeler, a social activist who, in an alternate timeline, delays U.S. entry into World War II, which allows the Nazis to develop the atomic bomb first, thereby winning the war.  Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock learn they must prevent McCoy from saving Keeler, which is complicated by the fact that Kirk falls hard for her.  She’s a visionary who speaks of space travel and a better world.  As Kirk courts her, Keeler says she dreams of a future in which all the money currently spent on war and death … and Kirk completes her thought by saying that that money will be spent instead on life.  Kindred spirits they are, Kirk and Keeler, yet to restore history to its proper place, he must let her die.

Joan Collins as Edith Keeler and William Shatner as Captain Kirk: Reaching for the stars

Keeler’s dream of peace – of all the trillions of dollars spent on weapons and war and death being instead spent on life – is the proper one, the right one, even as it was tragically premature.  For this she must die, forgotten to history, a bit player remembered only for running a small neighborhood mission for those with nowhere else to go.

I’ve always been attracted to science fiction and to plots both utopian, or at least hopeful, and dystopian.  But in the dystopia in which we increasingly find ourselves today, we need hopeful visions.  We need Edith Keelers.  But to use Star Trek-speak again, what I see issuing from the U.S. government is far more consistent with a Klingon Empire driven by war than a peaceful and life-affirming “federation” of planets.  The U.S. empire is not about to go quietly, nor will it go peacefully.

It’s time for a new course, a far less bellicose one, but a no less determined one, where Americans look within rather than without. Echoing Edith Keeler, let’s spend our money and resources on life, not death, love, not war. Let’s try that for the next 20 years. If we do, I bet we’ll be a lot better off in 2041 than we are today.

America Is Programmed for War

W.J. Astore

In my latest article for TomDispatch, I write that America is programmed for war. It’s a feature of our polity and our politics and our culture, not a bug. In some sense, we are a country made by war, and that’s not a good feature for a self-avowed democracy to have. Here’s an excerpt:

Why don’t America’s wars ever end?

I know, I know: President Joe Biden has announced that our combat troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by 9/11 of this year, marking the 20th anniversary of the colossal failure of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to defend America.

Of course, that other 9/11 in 2001 shocked us all. I was teaching history at the U.S. Air Force Academy and I still recall hushed discussions of whether the day’s body count would exceed that of the Battle of Antietam, the single bloodiest day of the Civil War. (Fortunately, bad as it was, it didn’t.)

Hijacked commercial airliners, turned into guided missiles by shadowy figures our panicky politicians didn’t understand, would have a profound impact on our collective psyche. Someone had to pay and among the first victims were Afghans in the opening salvo of the misbegotten Global War on Terror, which we in the military quickly began referring to as the GWOT. Little did I know then that such a war would still be going on 15 years after I retired from the Air Force in 2005 and 80 articles after I wrote my first for TomDispatch in 2007 arguing for an end to militarism and forever wars like the one still underway in Afghanistan.

Over those years, I’ve come to learn that, in my country, war always seems to find a way, even when it goes badly — very badly, in fact, as it did in Vietnam and, in these years, in Afghanistan and Iraq, indeed across much of the Greater Middle East and significant parts of Africa. Not coincidentally, those disastrous conflicts haven’t actually been waged in our name. No longer does Congress even bother with formal declarations of war. The last one came in 1941 after Pearl Harbor. During World War II, Americans united to fight for something like national security and a just cause. Today, however, perpetual American-style war simply is. Congress postures, but does nothing decisive to stop it. In computer-speak, endless war is a feature of our national programming, not a bug.

Two pro-war parties, Republicans and Democrats, have cooperated in these decades to ensure that such wars persist… and persist and persist. Still, they’re not the chief reason why America’s wars are so difficult to end. Let me list some of those reasons for you. First, such wars are beyond profitable, notably to weapons makers and related military contractors. Second, such wars are the Pentagon’s reason for being. Let’s not forget that, once upon a time, the present ill-named Department of Defense was so much more accurately and honestly called the Department of War. Third, if profit and power aren’t incentive enough, wars provide purpose and meaning even as they strengthen authoritarian structures in society and erode democratic ones. Sum it all up and war is what America now does, even if the reasons may be indefensible and the results so regularly abysmal.

Support Our Troops! (Who Are They, Again?)

The last truly American war was World War II. And when it ended in 1945, the citizen-soldiers within the U.S. military demanded rapid demobilization — and they got it. But then came the Iron Curtain, the Cold War, the Korean War, fears of nuclear Armageddon (that nearly came to fruition during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962), and finally, of course, Vietnam. Those wars were generally not supported — not with any fervor anyway — by the American people, hence the absence of congressional declarations. Instead, they mainly served the interests of the national security state, or, if you prefer, the military-industrial-congressional complex.

Ike knew the score

That’s precisely why President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued his grave warning about that Complex in his farewell address in 1961. No peacenik, Ike had overseen more than his share of military coups and interventions abroad while president, so much so that he came to see the faults of the system he was both upholding and seeking to restrain. That was also why President John F. Kennedy called for a more humble and pacific approach to the Cold War in 1963, even as he himself failed to halt the march toward a full-scale war in Southeast Asia. This is precisely why Martin Luther King, Jr., truly a prophet who favored the fierce urgency of peace, warned Americans about the evils of war and militarism (as well as racism and materialism) in 1967. In the context of the enormity of destruction America was then visiting on the peoples of Southeast Asia, not for nothing did he denounce this country as the world’s greatest purveyor of violence.

Collectively, Americans chose to ignore such warnings, our attention being directed instead toward spouting patriotic platitudes in support of “our” troops. Yet, if you think about it for a moment, you’ll realize those troops aren’t really ours. If they were, we wouldn’t need so many bumper stickers reminding us to support them.

With the military draft gone for the last half-century, most Americans have voted with their feet by not volunteering to become “boots on the ground” in the Pentagon’s various foreign escapades. Meanwhile, America’s commanders-in-chief have issued inspiring calls for their version of national service, as when, in the wake of 9/11, President George W. Bush urged Americans to go shopping and visit Disney World. In the end, Americans, lacking familiarity with combat boots, are generally apathetic, sensing that “our” wars have neither specific meaning to, nor any essential purpose in their lives.

As a former Air Force officer, even if now retired, I must admit that it took me too long to realize this country’s wars had remarkably little to do with me — or you, for that matter — because we simply have no say in them. That doesn’t mean our leaders don’t seek to wage them in our name. Even as they do so, however, they simultaneously absolve us of any need to serve or sacrifice. We’re essentially told to cheer “our” troops on, but otherwise look away and leave war to the professionals (even if, as it turns out, those professionals seem utterly incapable of winning a single one of them).

Please read the rest of my article here at TomDispatch.com.

The Never-Ending Afghan War

General Mark Milley. So many ribbons, so few victories (Gabriella Demczuk/New America)

Tom Engelhardt. Introduction by W.J. Astore.

Ever since that fateful day of 9/11/2001, Americans have been trying to process what can only be termed a colossal defeat. Showing our usual capacity for denial, we’ve rebranded it as a day for patriotism. We built the Freedom Tower, exactly 1776 feet high, on the ruins of the Twin Towers. We “got” Osama bin Laden. Yet the first victims of our collective rage, the Taliban in Afghanistan, have somehow emerged triumphant in a long destructive war against U.S. and NATO forces.

With his usual powerful prose, careful research, and keen eye for telling details, Tom Engelhardt has written a compelling introduction to Rajan Menon’s latest article on the Afghan War. It’s reposted here with Tom’s permission. W.J. Astore

It started with three air strikes on September 11, 2001. The fourth plane, heading perhaps for the Capitol (a building that wouldn’t be targeted again until last January 6th), ended up in a field in Pennsylvania. Those three strikes led to an American invasion of Afghanistan, beginning this country’s second war there in the last half-century. Almost 20 years later, according to the New York Times, there have been more than 13,000 U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan. Call that payback after a fashion. There’s only one problem: the greatest military on the planet, with a budget larger than that of the next 10 countries combined, has visibly lost its war there and is now in full-scale retreat. It may not be withdrawing the last of its forces on May 1st, as the Trump administration had agreed to do, but despite the pressure of the American military high command, President Biden “overrode the brass” and announced that every last American soldier would be gone by the 20th anniversary of those first airstrikes against the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

At this late date, consider it grimly fascinating that the generals who all those years kept claiming that “corners” were being turned and “progress” made, that we were “on the road to winning” in Afghanistan, as the present Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley insisted back in 2013, simply can’t let go of one of their great failures and move on. Under the circumstances, don’t for a second assume that the American war in Afghanistan is truly over. For one thing, the Taliban have not yet agreed to the new withdrawal date, as they did to the May 1st one. Instead, some of its commanders are promising a “nightmare” for U.S. troops in the months to come. Were they, for instance, to attack an air base and kill some American soldiers, who knows what the reaction here might be?

In addition, the Pentagon high command and this country’s intelligence agencies are still planning for possibly making war on Afghanistan from a distance in order to “prevent the country from again becoming a terrorist base.” As Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper of the New York Times reported recently, “Planners at the military’s Central Command in Tampa, Fla., and Joint Staff in Washington have been developing options to offset the loss of American combat boots on the ground.”

In other words, the American war in Afghanistan may be ending but, as with so much else about that endless experience, even the finale is still up for grabs. In that context, consider the thoughts of TomDispatch regular Rajan Menon on what has, without any doubt, been the American war from hell of this century. Tom

Please read Rajan Menon’s latest article at TomDispatch.com.

More Afghan War Lies

Like much of Biden’s face, America’s Afghan War is kept hidden behind a dark mask (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

W.J. Astore

President Biden has announced that all U.S. military combat troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by 9/11/2021. That date was chosen deliberately and cynically. Recall that 15 of the 19 terrorist hijackers of 9/11 were Saudi. Recall that Osama bin Laden was Saudi. Recall that it was Al Qaeda, not the Taliban in Afghanistan, that was behind the 9/11 attacks on America. Yet America’s Afghan War has always been falsely advertised as both preemptive and preventative, i.e. America went to war to preempt another 9/11-style attack and has continued that war to prevent similar attacks coming from Afghanistan. It’s a false narrative that has largely worked to sustain the Afghan War for twenty years, and Biden is reinforcing it.

Another critical issue: What does it really mean when Biden says those combat troops will be withdrawn? What it doesn’t mean is that the war will end. Doubtless the CIA and similar intelligence operatives will remain behind, shrouded in secrecy. Doubtless some special forces units will stay. Doubtless private contractors, many of them ex-military, will stay. Doubtless America will reserve the “right” to continue to bomb Afghanistan and to conduct drone strikes from halfway across the world, ostensibly in support of the Afghan “national” government in Kabul. So is the war really ending?

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is getting what it wants: a boosted budget (even above what Trump requested) and a future defined by plans for war with China and Russia (and perhaps Iran as well). I’ve seen plenty of articles screaming that China is building a powerful navy, that China is building dangerous missiles, that China is building advanced fighter jets, and so on, which is exactly what the Pentagon wants: a “near-peer” rival to justify even more military spending, especially for big-ticket items like aircraft carriers, fighters, bombers, missile defense systems, and so on.

Biden’s linking of the failed Afghan War to 9/11 and its forthcoming 20th anniversary is yet another exercise in pernicious lying by America’s vast national security state. Once again, we’re reminded that the first casualty in war is truth. And perhaps the last casualty of the Afghan War (whenever it really ends, at least for America) will also be truth.

First as Tragedy, then as Farce

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W.J. Astore

Perhaps you’ve heard the saying that history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce.  Karl Marx used it to describe Napoleon’s cataclysmic reign followed by the far less momentous and far more ignominious reign of his nephew, Napoleon III.

Marx’s saying applies well to two momentous events in recent U.S. history: the 9/11 attacks of 2001 and the current coronavirus pandemic.  The American response to the first was tragic; to the second, farcical.

Let me explain.  I vividly recall the aftermath to the 9/11 attacks.  The world was largely supportive of the United States.  “We are all Americans now” was a sentiment aired in many a country that didn’t necessarily love America.  And the Bush/Cheney administration proceeded to throw all that good will away in a disastrous war on terror that only made terror into a pandemic of sorts, with American troops spreading it during calamitous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, among other military interventions around the globe.

Again, it was tragic for America to have thrown away all that good will in the pursuit of dominance through endless military action.  A great opportunity was missed for true American leadership achieved via a more patient, far less bellicose, approach to suppressing terrorism.

In this tragedy, the Bush/Cheney administration avoided all responsibility, first for not preventing the attacks, and second for bungling the response so terribly.  Indeed, George W. Bush was reelected in 2004 and has now been rehabilitated as a decent man and a friend by popular Democrats like Michelle Obama, who see him in a new light when compared to America’s current president.

Speaking of Donald Trump, consider his response to America’s second defining moment of the 21st century: the coronavirus pandemic.  It’s been farcical.  The one great theme that’s emerged from Trump’s 260,000 words about the pandemic is self-congratulation, notes the New York Times.  Even as America’s death toll climbs above 50,000, Trump congratulates himself on limiting the number of deaths, even as he takes pride in television ratings related to his appearances.  The farce was complete when the president unwisely decided to pose as a health authority, telling Americans to ingest or inject poisonous household disinfectants to kill the virus.

Tragedy, then farce.  But with the same repetition of a total failure to take responsibility. As Trump infamously said, “I don’t take responsibility at all” for the botched response to the pandemic.

9/11 and Covid-19 may well be the defining events of the last 20 years.  After 9/11, Bush/Cheney tragically squandered the good will of the world in rampant militarism and ceaseless wars.  Then came Covid, an even bigger calamity, and now we have our farcical president, talking about the health benefits of injecting or ingesting bleach and similar poisons.  At a time when the U.S. should lead the world in medical expertise to confront this virus, we’ve become a laughingstock instead.

What comes after farce, one wonders?  For too many Americans, the answer may well be further death and loss.