Suicide Squad - TomDispatch.com

Suicide Squad - TomDispatch.com Nick Turse, Osama Bin Laden’s Enduring Triumph July 25, 2024 Here's a strange thing to even begin to grasp. In all these years, at least in Washington, the heartland of American power, it hasn't been understood, not even faintly. In -- yes! -- all these years, including significant parts of the last century and this one, this country has continually poured ever more money into its military budget. The numbers have become utterly staggering as that yearly budget heads for a cool trillion dollars. And yet, in those same years, the United States, which now spends more on its military than the next nine (or is it 10?) countries combined, hasn't been able to win a single war that mattered. In the last century, it essentially tied (if you can even use such a word in relation to a hell on earth) in the Korean War and distinctly lost in Vietnam. In this century, as part of its never-ending Global War on Terror, it spent 20 (yes, 20!) years losing its war in Afghanistan and functionally did the same thing in Iraq. Nor, as TomDispatch regular Nick Turse has reported brilliantly in these years, has it had real success in the rest of the Middle East or Africa, where, he's estimated, since that war on terror began, deaths from terrorism have increased by more than 50,000% and terror attacks by more than 75,000%. Given such a record of "success," if it were any other government program, there would be severe cutbacks and major criticism (especially in an election year), but when it comes to the U.S. military, not a chance, not for a moment. And worse yet, as Turse points out today, even though the Global War on Terror has finally more or less ground to a halt, if not an end, almost 23 years after it was launched, the casualties from it continue to mount in a distinctly -- yes! -- suicidal fashion. What a horror... but let him explain as vividly as he always does. Tom