Thursday, December 29, 2011

Was the Iraq war worth it? - Bacevich: war is "normal" now

The Council on Foreign Relations asked "Was the Iraq war worth it?" Andrew Bacevich deplores the narrow cost-benefit framing - and points to the vast consequences - including the `normalization' of the state of war. But that is the consequence not of the Iraq debacle but of the relentless succession of small wars - the U.S. interventions normalized by the Cold War. - GWC
Bacevich: After Iraq, War is U.S. – Global Public Square - CNN.com Blogs:
"Yet in inviting a narrow cost-benefit analysis, the question-as-posed serves to understate the scope of the debacle engineered by the war's architects. The disastrous legacy of the Iraq War extends beyond treasure squandered and lives lost or shattered. Central to that legacy has been Washington's decisive and seemingly irrevocable abandonment of any semblance of self-restraint regarding the use of violence as an instrument of statecraft. With all remaining prudential, normative, and constitutional barriers to the use of force having now been set aside, war has become a normal condition, something that the great majority of Americans accept without complaint. War is U.S."
'via Blog this'

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