War or Peace

        “We are doomed and our leaders are insane.”

        So wrote journalist Matt Taibbi recently.

        Taibbi didn’t respond to our request for an interview, but he raises issues that deserve debate. So my new video is based on his column.

        “Not one of our presidents …” Taibbi writes, “can resist starting wars.”

        When the Soviet Union fell, President Bill Clinton said, “The Cold War is over; we must secure the peace.”

        A few years later, he and NATO launched airstrikes against Serbian forces.

        Clinton got the U.S. involved in conflicts in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo.

        President George W. Bush was elected after saying, “I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called ‘nation-building’ … I don’t want to be the world’s policeman.”

        Then Bush became “history’s all-time booster for world-policing,” writes Taibbi, sending American soldiers to Afghanistan and Iraq.

        He did that despite his defense secretary giving him a memo listing 29 ways their plan could fail:

        Iraq could fracture. Ethnic conflict could spread. Other countries might exploit the chaos. The United States might have difficulty finding weapons of mass destruction. It would be hard to govern Iraq after Saddam Hussein was removed. 

        Many of the warnings came true. Thousands of Americans died.

        Did our politicians see the error of their ways? No.

        Hillary Clinton ran for president promising to send more soldiers to Afghanistan.

        Barack Obama promised “real change.” He criticized Bush’s war policies, pointed out that he was a “constitutional lawyer” and promised to close the Guantanamo Bay prison.

        While campaigning, he said, “I will give our military a new mission on my first day in office: ending this war.”

        Voters liked that. Obama won.

        Just eight months later, he won a Nobel Peace Prize for what the Nobel judges called “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

        Obama did withdraw most American soldiers from Iraq, but then he sent an additional 30,000 American soldiers to Afghanistan, expanded drone assassinations in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and launched missiles at Libya.

        Guantanamo remained open.

        At one point, Obama reportedly even told staffers, “Turns out I’m really good at killing people.”

        Then Donald Trump was elected.

        “From the moment he came down that escalator,” writes Taibbi, “he was different.”

        During his first term, he stated, “Our goal is peace.”

        He stuck to that. He started no wars during his first term.

        Then President Joe Biden was elected, saying, “Time to end the forever war.”

        Biden did withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan … but so clumsily that hundreds of innocent people were killed.

        He then sent supplies and advanced weapons to Ukraine, declaring that the U.S. will “stand with Ukraine” in its war with Russia.   

        When Trump ran again, he repeatedly said, “We will have no more wars.”

        But look at what’s happened since. 

        “Trump in his second term is no longer an affront to the system,” writes Taibbi. “He is the system. … We’re an empire … about to pour our vanishing treasure into a $1.5 trillion defense budget that’s got eyes on Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Greenland, Colombia …”

        I don’t know if he’s right. I focus on economics. I know little about diplomacy and foreign affairs. I don’t understand why presidents who promise peace keep taking us to war.

        One reason is that Congress lets them.

        In Washington, starting a war is easy. Ending one is a nightmare.

        Since a president is only blasted for chaos that results from pulling troops out, why even try? It’s safer to avoid terrible headlines and just let the wars grind on.

        One thing I do know after many years covering politicians is that their grand plans rarely achieve their stated goals.

        Since World War II, America’s launched military interventions in Korea, Vietnam, Greece, Cuba, Cambodia, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iran …

        Our intentions were good, but often, the results were not.

        President George Washington, in his farewell address, said, “Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?”

        That’s good advice, now largely ignored.

        Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and freedom. He is the author of “Government Gone Wild: Exposing the Truth Behind the Headlines.”

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