How the U.S. Military Feeds at the Terror Trough

http://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/17/how-the-u-s-military-feeds-at-the-terror-trough/
Date Written:  2019-04-17
Publisher:  Counterpunch
Year Published:  2019
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX23630

A meandering take on the US's perpetual wars around the world.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

And honestly, 600-odd words in, this wasn't meant to be a piece about either Somalia or Africa. It was meant to be about those U.S. wars being off the charts, about how the Pentagon now feeds eternally at the terror trough, al-Shabaab being only a tiny part of the slop it regularly digests. So, for the seven of you still reading, let me change the subject to something a little more appealingly - to quote a well-known authority - "ridiculous" when it comes to American war.

Maybe you won't be surprised to learn that what I have in mind is the war in Afghanistan, another of Washington’s off-the-charts affairs. It might even qualify as the original one (if you don't count Vietnam, which would take you back to the Neolithic Age of the U.S. military’s infinite wars). Lest you think I only mean the war that began in Afghanistan after the terror attacks of 9/11, think again. I’m talking about the American war in that distant land that started in 1979, the decade-long conflict in which the U.S. supported extreme Islamists (including a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden) - they were our guys, then - to successfully force the Red Army out of Afghanistan.