With all this talk about how the US >military is the "best trained in
the world" and can't be defeated, one >never hears the obvious

If they're so effective, why is it that >150,000 of them can't get

of a few thousand lightly armed >insurgents in Iraq?

With all this talk about how the US military is the "best trained in
the world" and can't be defeated, one never hears the obvious question:
If they're so effective, why is it that 150,000 of them can't get rid
of a few thousand lightly armed insurgents in Iraq? If anything, the
movement is actually *getting larger* over there despite the US
military's best efforts. We were assured in May 2003 that "major
combat operations" were over. That was false. Then we were assured
that while there was an insurgency, it'd be gone in a few months
because all they were was "target practice" for our "well trained"
troops. Here we are nearly two years later and we're still fighting an
insurgency which grows by the day. Only one conclusion can be drawn:
our military is entirely overrated.

But don't let little things like facts get in the way of militarists
who believe civilians are "inferior" to them. They have an ego to
stroke to cover for their latent insecurity, and boy, don't they ever
self congratulate themselves despite most of it being unwarranted:

With all this talk about how the US military is the "best trained in
the world" and can't be defeated, one never hears the obvious question:
If they're so effective, why is it that 150,000 of them can't get rid
of a few thousand lightly armed insurgents in Iraq? If anything, the
movement is actually *getting larger* over there despite the US
military's best efforts. We were assured in May 2003 that "major
combat operations" were over. That was false. Then we were assured
that while there was an insurgency, it'd be gone in a few months
because all they were was "target practice" for our "well trained"
troops. Here we are nearly two years later and we're still fighting an
insurgency which grows by the day. Only one conclusion can be drawn:
our military is entirely overrated.

But don't let little things like facts get in the way of militarists
who believe civilians are "inferior" to them. They have an ego to
stroke to cover for their latent insecurity, and boy, don't they ever
self congratulate themselves despite most of it being unwarranted:

--------------------------------------------------
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts96.html
Bush Outfoxed By Bin Laden
by Paul Craig Roberts

President Bush's invasion has turned Iraq into a recruiting and
training ground for anti-US terrorists, according to CIA director
Porter Goss in testimony before the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence on February 16. Goss' report was supported by Vice
Admiral Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Jacoby told the committee that "our policies in the Middle East fuel
Islamic resentment." The Iraq insurgency, Jacoby reported, has grown
"in size and complexity over the past year" with daily attacks
increasing 240%.

The situation, in other words, is out of control. 150,000 American
troops are tied down by a few thousand lightly armed insurgents. The
recent Iraq election was won by Shi'ites allied with Iran. US
casualties continue to mount, and our troops can seldom tell friend
from foe.

Why isn't Bush looking for a way out of the greatest strategic
blunder in American history? Why, instead, is Bush and his government
doing all they can to spread the conflict into Syria and Iran?

The neoconservatives' goal is the same as Osama bin Laden's - to
spread instability in the Middle East. The neocons seek to foment
instability in order to justify more US invasions in an insane quest to
remake the Middle East in the American image. Bin Laden seeks
instability in order to topple the secular rulers and recreate Islamic
rule. Bin Laden does not want US troops out. He wants to suck America
in deeper in order to create revolutionary insurgency throughout the
Middle East.

The Bush administration is moronic enough to oblige bin Laden. In a
recent 24-hour period the Bush administration made the following
mistakes:

The Bush administration blamed Syria for the recent assassination of a
former Lebanese prime minister, recalled the US ambassador to Syria,
and demanded that Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon. In public
statements, administration officials have accused Iran of being close
to producing nuclear weapons despite all evidence to the contrary. VP
Cheney suggested that Israel bomb Iran's nuclear installations, and
President Bush said Israel had the right to preemptive attack and that
the US would support Israel.

There is no evidence that Syria is responsible for the assassination.
The International Atomic Energy Agency conducts regular inspections of
Iran's nuclear facilities and reports that there are no weapons
violations. France, Germany and Russia have reached the same
conclusion. Yet, once again the US misrepresents the facts in order to
deceive the American people and create a climate for expanding Bush's
war in the Middle East.

Despite the disaster they have caused, neoconservatives still hold the
reins of power in the Bush administration. They have made their agenda
clear: war throughout the Middle East. Their orchestrated invasion of
Iraq was merely a stepping-stone to their wider aim. The neocons seize
every opportunity to use provocative accusations, bellicose threats,
and propaganda to stir up ever more American enemies in the Middle
East. Their goal is to provoke a "Pearl Harbor," as Christopher Manion
terms it, that can be used to bring back the military draft.

This policy plays directly into bin Laden's hands. Osama has
succeeded in tricking America into spending $300 billion in an
unsuccessful act of revenge that has ruined America's reputation
while recruiting tens of thousands of recruits for bin Laden.

The neoconservatives are the greatest threat America has ever faced,
and they control the Office of the President, the Office of the Vice
President, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the
police state apparatus known as "Homeland Security."

The neocons have enormous propaganda resources: the entirely of
rightwing talk radio, the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal, Fox
"News," National Review, the Washington Times, and numerous daily
newspapers.

Neocons have succeeded in intimidating the TV networks, National Public
Radio and CNN. The neocons cannot fully control the news, but they
abuse the offices of trust that they occupy in order to spin the news
to their purposes.

Any day now the neocons may orchestrate a scenario that will suck the
US into a wider war that America has no possibility of winning. If the
American people had the slightest sense of their danger, they would
demand immediate US withdrawal from Iraq and accountability for the
liars who orchestrated the ill-fated US invasion.

February 21, 2005

Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for
Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He
is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former
contributing editor for National Review, and a former assistant
secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of
Good Intentions.

Copyright © 2005 Creators Syndicate

movement is actually *getting larger* over there despite the US
military's best efforts. We were assured in May 2003 that "major
combat operations" were over. That was false.