Alternet
has an interesting interview with Andrew Bacevich about his new book Washington Rules. Bacevich served
twenty-three years in the U.S. army and is a professor of history and
international relations at Boston University. His previous book is The New American Militarism. The book
includes a stinging defense of our defense policy. Bacevich maintains: “The
notion that we should take seriously the ambitions of Osama Bin Laden to create
a new caliphate, uniting the entire Islamic world under his control, is
preposterous. He’s no more likely to create a new caliphate than I am to become
the next pope in Rome. The threat ought to have been categorized, and today
should be categorized, as a form of international criminal conspiracy: a kind
of Mafia that derives a certain amount of its energy by perverting a religious
tradition. And the proper response to an international criminal conspiracy is
an international police effort.
“Our
approach -- President Bush’s approach now continued in Afghanistan by President
Obama, which emphasizes invading, occupying and then trying to transform
countries -- doesn’t work, costs way too much money, expends far too many
American lives, and at the end of the day probably serves more than anything
else to simply exacerbate the number of people who see us as infidels and
occupiers.”
Bacevich
has interesting things to say about why we pursue this policy of folly and he
regards Obama as more morally culpable than Bush. The interview is well worth
reading.
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