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| US Can't Deal with Defeat |
| 2023-09-23 |
| [Consortium News] The United States is being defeated in Ukraine. One could say that it is facing defeat — or, more starkly, that it is staring defeat in the face. Neither formulation is appropriate, though. The U.S. doesn’t look reality squarely in the eye. It prefers to look at the world through the distorted lenses of its fantasies. It plunges forward on whatever path it’s chosen while averting its eyes from the topography it is trying to traverse. Its sole guiding light is the glow of a distant mirage. That is its lodestone. It is not that America is a stranger to defeat. It is very well acquainted with it: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria — in strategic terms if not always military terms. To this broad category, we might add Venezuela, Cuba and Niger. That rich experience in frustrated ambition has failed to liberate Washington from the deeply rooted habit of eliding defeat. Indeed, the U.S. has acquired a large inventory of methods for doing so. |
| Posted by:Grom the Reflective |
| #8 ^^^^ Double Ditto |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2023-09-23 12:34 |
| #7 ^ This |
| Posted by: Frank G 2023-09-23 12:03 |
| #6 I don't think the point was to win. The point was to f**k with the Russians. It was fun at first, but the party is starting to drag and we need to find an excuse to make a graceful exit. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2023-09-23 12:01 |
| #5 US in talks for largest-ever sale of arms, fighter jets to Vietnam |
| Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2023-09-23 10:18 |
| #4 #3The US has a long history of getting in shooting matches in places no one had heard of, where we didn't have any actual business, was done by half measures, with no plan that defined what the end would look like. What's the goal? If you can't define it, you can't do it. Posted by: ed in texas Ed speaks the truth! |
| Posted by: Tennessee 2023-09-23 09:07 |
| #3 The US has a long history of getting in shooting matches in places no one had heard of, where we didn't have any actual business, was done by half measures, with no plan that defined what the end would look like. What's the goal? If you can't define it, you can't do it. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2023-09-23 08:28 |
| #2 We've been dealing with defeats since the beginning. The First and Second Seminole wars were fought to remove the tribe from Florida. Guess who is still there? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2023-09-23 08:21 |
| #1 American leaders, military as well as civilian, are stuck to a model that emphasizes control of territory. Interestingly, US military should've learned the opposite from its Indian Wars. |
| Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2023-09-23 04:30 |