By Daniel Nardini
No, U.S. President Donald Trump did not get the Nobel Peace Prize. It was not possible—all of the nominations had to be submitted by January 31st of this year. As far as any peace deals he has claimed to have made…………………..that is questionable to put it mildly. The Gaza War is also questionable. The whole thing looked at overall is far from resolved. The Middle East is notorious for things never being fully resolved. I will not even touch his domestic policies at this moment. But the weird thing is that for the first time in a quarter of a century America is at peace. The bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities not withstanding, this country is at peace. It is ironic that during the first term of the Trump administration, an agreement was made with the Taliban for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Never mind that the Afghan national government was not included in the talks; that government we now know was never a credible force for governing the whole country and was corrupt as hell.
But you have to think about how long America was at war. Since September 11, 2001, the United States was at war for 17 of the 25 years of this century. That is a long time. In the end, the Afghanistan War, the Iraq War, and the War on Terror was all for naught. America lost 7,085 military personnel, spent $2.1 trillion, and in the end the Taliban won. The U.S. government had made the same ghastly mistakes that it had in the Vietnam War (1963-1973), and in the end the enemy had won. Worse for America, our alliances have been frayed by the American defeats, and now even our most earnest allies doubt the ability of the United States to prevail in war. What Americans seem to have forgotten is that the enemies this country fought in both Afghanistan and Iraq were not going anywhere. No matter what military might, no matter what America advanced technology may have been, the other side was not going to give up and never stop. Like Vietnam, America was dragged into a forever war situation. It seems that we as a country and a people have learned nothing from a forever war (let me rephrase that, the government leadership has learned nothing).
It is the supreme irony that Trump so far is keeping us out of war and our of conflicts that could drag this country back to the precipice of disaster as happened in Vietnam, happened in Iraq and then Afghanistan. Will he keep us out of war? I really cannot answer. The incredible part is that he has avoided the pitfalls of previous presidents who put us into undefined wars with no clear goals in mind what to do. As I go places to shop, I see former veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars trying to just survive. It seems many Americans only see them as forgotten relics from wars they really did not want to be part of. I see them as fellow human beings who suffered way too much unnecessarily for this country. I can only hope that in my lifetime I do not see anymore American boots on the ground in another ill-defined war [since I wrote this, the U.S. military has sunk yet another so-called “drug boat” off the coast of Venezuela. It is things like this that sucked America into wars for regime change or for taking over other countries].
He Kept Us Out of War?
By Daniel Nardini
But you have to think about how long America was at war. Since September 11, 2001, the United States was at war for 17 of the 25 years of this century. That is a long time. In the end, the Afghanistan War, the Iraq War, and the War on Terror was all for naught. America lost 7,085 military personnel, spent $2.1 trillion, and in the end the Taliban won. The U.S. government had made the same ghastly mistakes that it had in the Vietnam War (1963-1973), and in the end the enemy had won. Worse for America, our alliances have been frayed by the American defeats, and now even our most earnest allies doubt the ability of the United States to prevail in war. What Americans seem to have forgotten is that the enemies this country fought in both Afghanistan and Iraq were not going anywhere. No matter what military might, no matter what America advanced technology may have been, the other side was not going to give up and never stop. Like Vietnam, America was dragged into a forever war situation. It seems that we as a country and a people have learned nothing from a forever war (let me rephrase that, the government leadership has learned nothing).
It is the supreme irony that Trump so far is keeping us out of war and our of conflicts that could drag this country back to the precipice of disaster as happened in Vietnam, happened in Iraq and then Afghanistan. Will he keep us out of war? I really cannot answer. The incredible part is that he has avoided the pitfalls of previous presidents who put us into undefined wars with no clear goals in mind what to do. As I go places to shop, I see former veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars trying to just survive. It seems many Americans only see them as forgotten relics from wars they really did not want to be part of. I see them as fellow human beings who suffered way too much unnecessarily for this country. I can only hope that in my lifetime I do not see anymore American boots on the ground in another ill-defined war [since I wrote this, the U.S. military has sunk yet another so-called “drug boat” off the coast of Venezuela. It is things like this that sucked America into wars for regime change or for taking over other countries].