Mission accomplished in Libya? That depends on your definition of mission accomplished. When Bush and his cabal got rid of Saddam Hussein and established a military foothold in Iraq, that was mission accomplished for the “neoconservatives” (neocons). Of course they wanted and still want much more, but if you look at what they wanted, they’ve got plenty so far.
Why is the United States still involved in Afghanistan after ten years, Iraq after eight years, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and now Libya, while maintaining over 1000 military bases worldwide, stationing military, intelligence and special forces in over 120 countries (very heavily in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa), and spending (and borrowing) trillions to do it? Why has the United States budget for defense, intelligence, and security programs continually risen over the last ten years to approximately $1.2 trillion per year, or about 65% of the entire discretionary budget? Why do we need to spend more on "defense" than almost all other countries combined? Why do almost all U.S. politicians agree that we can’t cut, at least not substantially, the “defense” spending that has more than tripled over the last decade?
As we come upon the ten year anniversary of the Global War on Terror and the Afghanistan war (October 6th), we see the questions more often: Why? Why are we still there? Why should anymore service members be killed? For what? Are we ever going to leave?
Is it still because of 9/11, the Global War on Terror and the terrorist group Al Qaeda, after ten years of war? Is it because of Al Qaeda and any terrorist or terrorist group, anywhere, who might be a threat to the U.S. and our “interests”? Is it because of threats from other countries such as Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela and North Korea to our homeland? Is it because of Imperialism, hegemony and colonialism? Is it because of the power of the Military Industrial Complex and the Pentagon? Or is it because the United States government, or at least the elite segment of society that controls it, want nothing less than global military supremacy and full spectrum military dominance over all land, water, air, space, and cyberspace on earth and beyond?
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