Jean Bricmont has an thoughtful piece today in Counterpunch:
Per Bricmont, The Great Western Delusion sees a world full of peoples "oppressed by their own governments, run by political dictators and economic mismanagers" seeking support of liberation "by the good, democratic, liberal, open market West."
IMO, the GWD is one of several "pleasing" narrative - spun by politicians, op-ed writers, talking heads from the military-industrial-infotainment-financial complex - to help gin up support for the latest invasion and occupation efforts (politico-military blunder), the first in a series of such narratives.
Any and all dissent to the newest "mission (invasion - occupation)" is handled by a another "pleasing" narratives - those who oppose the war do not support the brave troops, and are thus de facto traitors. Dissenters are liberals and intellectuals who spit on the troops.
Once the invasion mission has "been accomplished", another "pleasing" narrative emerges - how wonderful our war-making technology has worked and how heroic our sacrificing soldiers are. Video-game like coverage of the war plays non-stop on cable news (while the cable news rating spike upward).
As the occupation continues, and the occupied "dead-enders and terrorists" resist, yet another narrative emerges. Because of the "dead-enders and terrorists" "our troops" have to stay to "complete the mission" - to bring freedom to the freedom loving peoples of this invaded and occupied nation.
The final narratives start to play out when the things get so bad - meaning "our things" - our soldiers' blood and the hemorrhaging our nation's treasury, as well as "our" costs for food, housing, transportation, education, infrastructure maintenance and repair rising because of inflation as the government prints more money to keep funding the war ever higher levels.
Yes when things get so bad for US, that "we" decide to remove our occupying army.
Since the world's sole super-power, with all of it's technological might, and the best soldiers in the world could not "win" the invasion and occupation, obviously, the "war" was not prosecuted as it should have been. Better administration / planning would have saved the day. The competence of the current political administration is questioned. The pleasing narrative - "had but the war been prosecuted more competently, we would have won."
Then someone must give the order to withdraw the troops. Whomever that President is, will come to be viewed as "The President Who Lost the War." Presidents would prefer to resign office rather than be known as a war-losing President.
As time begins to elapse post-withdrawal, the final narratives begin. The first narrative is spun by the military. "We were on the verge of victory, but our hands were tied behind our back. We were but six months short of total victory when the liberals, the hippies, the intellectuals, the Democrats forced us to withdraw."
And the final narrative is wound and spun -- we were not defeated by an external enemy, but by an enemy within - by traitors within our midst. We were stabbed in the back. Never again. Round them all up, all the traitors, or, at least, keep a very watchful eye on them. Telecoms - take note.
I mention in passing that the viewpoints of all such narratives are U.S.-centric. The calculus of the death, the misery, the destruction, the physical and psychological devastation to the living and murdered souls of the land invaded - "collateral damage" - another pleasing narrative, much more palatable than murdered and mutilated children, women, civilians, hospital workers, merchants, teachers, office workers, laborers, families, is virtually NEVER a consideration.
One of the lessons learned from the American Invasion and Occupation of Vietnam was DO NOT under any circumstances ever again show the public uncensored pictures of war.
Echoing Tom Englehardt, this key graf from Bricmont's piece:
Per Bricmont, The Great Western Delusion sees a world full of peoples "oppressed by their own governments, run by political dictators and economic mismanagers" seeking support of liberation "by the good, democratic, liberal, open market West."
IMO, the GWD is one of several "pleasing" narrative - spun by politicians, op-ed writers, talking heads from the military-industrial-infotainment-financial complex - to help gin up support for the latest invasion and occupation efforts (politico-military blunder), the first in a series of such narratives.
Any and all dissent to the newest "mission (invasion - occupation)" is handled by a another "pleasing" narratives - those who oppose the war do not support the brave troops, and are thus de facto traitors. Dissenters are liberals and intellectuals who spit on the troops.
Once the invasion mission has "been accomplished", another "pleasing" narrative emerges - how wonderful our war-making technology has worked and how heroic our sacrificing soldiers are. Video-game like coverage of the war plays non-stop on cable news (while the cable news rating spike upward).
As the occupation continues, and the occupied "dead-enders and terrorists" resist, yet another narrative emerges. Because of the "dead-enders and terrorists" "our troops" have to stay to "complete the mission" - to bring freedom to the freedom loving peoples of this invaded and occupied nation.
The final narratives start to play out when the things get so bad - meaning "our things" - our soldiers' blood and the hemorrhaging our nation's treasury, as well as "our" costs for food, housing, transportation, education, infrastructure maintenance and repair rising because of inflation as the government prints more money to keep funding the war ever higher levels.
Yes when things get so bad for US, that "we" decide to remove our occupying army.
Since the world's sole super-power, with all of it's technological might, and the best soldiers in the world could not "win" the invasion and occupation, obviously, the "war" was not prosecuted as it should have been. Better administration / planning would have saved the day. The competence of the current political administration is questioned. The pleasing narrative - "had but the war been prosecuted more competently, we would have won."
Then someone must give the order to withdraw the troops. Whomever that President is, will come to be viewed as "The President Who Lost the War." Presidents would prefer to resign office rather than be known as a war-losing President.
As time begins to elapse post-withdrawal, the final narratives begin. The first narrative is spun by the military. "We were on the verge of victory, but our hands were tied behind our back. We were but six months short of total victory when the liberals, the hippies, the intellectuals, the Democrats forced us to withdraw."
And the final narrative is wound and spun -- we were not defeated by an external enemy, but by an enemy within - by traitors within our midst. We were stabbed in the back. Never again. Round them all up, all the traitors, or, at least, keep a very watchful eye on them. Telecoms - take note.
I mention in passing that the viewpoints of all such narratives are U.S.-centric. The calculus of the death, the misery, the destruction, the physical and psychological devastation to the living and murdered souls of the land invaded - "collateral damage" - another pleasing narrative, much more palatable than murdered and mutilated children, women, civilians, hospital workers, merchants, teachers, office workers, laborers, families, is virtually NEVER a consideration.
One of the lessons learned from the American Invasion and Occupation of Vietnam was DO NOT under any circumstances ever again show the public uncensored pictures of war.
Echoing Tom Englehardt, this key graf from Bricmont's piece:
The reason it is a delusion is that it misses the fundamental change in the 20th century, at least the one which has had the greatest long lasting impact. This is not the history of fascism or of communism, which indeed belong to the past, but decolonization. Not only did this movement free hundreds of millions of people from a particularly brutal form of racist domination, but it inverted what had been the dominant trend in the history of the world since the end of the 16th century, namely the movement of European expansion. The 20th century marked the decline of Europe, and the replacement of Europe by the US as the center of the world system is likely to be short lived.
...
The problem of the US and Western elites is not only that they are willing to pursue violent policies in favour of their interests, but that they also pursue violent policies against their interests, because of their unbounded arrogance. We no longer control the world and great miseries follow from the non acceptance of this fact.
