First, the healthcare debate. The US has wound up with a system which is the most expensive in the world and yet ranks 37th in effectiveness.

Why?

Because the healthcare system likes it that way. The people who make the money care less about patient care than profits and there’s nothing the people can or will do about it.

Second, there is nothing being done to keep the rich from getting richer. The banking industry, failing institutions, used public bailout money to give executives huge bonuses. The public was powerless to stop that looting.

Those are bad enough, but they are only examples, symptoms. The folks with the hands on the levers of power are not inclined to take the longer view.

The illegal immigrant problem could be solved but won’t. It plays into the hands of those who want cheap labor which frees up enormous numbers of citizens for an “all volunteer” military.

The military isn’t stupid. They can look at Vietnam and recognize they lost. But they blame it on the politicians. They apply the same tactics in Iraq. And lose. And Afghanistan. And lose. Why? For the same reasons the health system is so poor. The politicians require them to purchase and use the same weapons systems or derivatives which lost before. But they are expensive. And consumable.

One asks why, and is led to “follow the money”. It has to make sense somewhere. Who benefits? Only the mega-corporations and wealthy.

And since the Karl Roves of the world are so effective, since elections can be bought, there isn’t much to be done. If it could be we’d have the best medical care system and an expanding middle class. We’d have the American Dream available to most Americans. And it’s not.

More and more and more kids can look forward to flipping burgers or prison.

These trends are continuing with no dynamic apparent to counter it.

We can’t do that today, even though we know exactly where our worst enemies are. To fly in a mission into ISIS and simply pound them into oblivion is a war-crime, so we gotta do it with boots-on-the-ground and facing them in hand-to-hand combat.

Hell, we can’t even deploy anti-personnel mines without getting a lot of senseless flak about harming the enemy.

Once upon a time, war was much more civilized.

Considering the context of the original question, I think you’re more right.

Yeah, we broke the hell out of the place, but that’s all ancient history now. All that matters now is whether we can get out without causing any further damage to ourselves–or at least, the minimum damage possible. As far as damage to others is concerned, that is, as it has always been in international affairs, their problem.

That debt, of course, will be paid in the future, by those who had nothing to do with it. What was 9/11 but payback for things that happened in the past, crimes committed by others, some before we were even born?

They promised the Americans, the Iraqis, the world that they would fix both Afghanistan and Iraq. Halliburton took that to the bank, but didn’t fix anything.

I know the super-patriots would disagree, but I don’t know that the US has anything to be proud of in the Middle East. I know if I were a Muslim leader I would not believe any promise or guarantee the US made as far as helping my people.

We broke the hell outta that place.

From the tribal perspective of our enemies. We did the right thing by demanding the Taliban give up Al-Quaeda, and when they didn’t, we took the Taliban’s country away from them. Honor, or if you prefer, “face”, was saved. But we should have left it in the hands of the Northern Alliance warlords and gotten out. Of course, the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq was all about geopolitical, economic and strategic goals. It had nothing to do with 9/11, and it is its consequences we are dealing with right now.

We are not blameless in the Middle East. Neither are our European predecessors. It is true, many of our problems there can be traced back to what Muslims see as infidel or “Crusader” interference in their affairs. There is much truth to this, but we simply cannot allow them to hurt us today for crimes committed by the English, French and Russians in the 19th century, or by the CIA in the the 1950s and 60s. If local thugs exploit those legitimate grievances as an excuse to carry out their own murderous agendas and local feuds and genocides, it is not our problem. When they start hijacking our planes, it becomes our problem.

When the Elder Bush invaded Iraq in the 90s in response to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait he finessed it all just right. He got local support, Euro buy-in, made clear it was about Kuwait and control of the Straits of Hormuz (where we had legitimate interests), and he got out as soon as the announced mission was completed. There were no repercussions about this, except that Bin Ladin was upset about our bases in Saudi, which was purely a religious issue. He hated the Russians, too, remember?

The Iraq invasion of the 21st century was something else again, it got us involved in local politics, religious squabbles, nation-building, a complete reorganization of the Iraqi state and political system, and got us bogged down in a long and bloody occupation and a rivalry with the Iranians. It was a colossal fuckup, it started dominoes tumbling that still haven’t fully played out, and we are still trying to disentangle ourselves from it all. Unlike the Elder Bush, we just didn’t go in and discipline a thug, we went in and took over in a place where we din’t have a clue what was going on and didn’t even have the resources to stop looters, and then we couldn’t pull out without leaving a vacuum that would lead to total chaos. That vacuum still exists, and its what is sucking Obama down as well. The Neocons want us to stay they forever, but the Iraqis ordered us out, remember? They wanted the right to arrest our troops at their convenience. Short of continuing an occupation under their terms indefinitely, we had no choice but to leave.

Obama’s mistake was not getting out totally and completely. We did our part, installed a new government, gave it democratic institutions, and spent a lot of money in reconstruction, arms and training to let them handle their own security. That fulfilled our you-break-it-you-buy-it obligation. THEY blew it by punishing the Sunnis and giving ISIS an excuse to invade, and then failing to stop them even with their advantages in men and equipment.

Of course, we had to stay in because of the threatened genocide by ISIS, and because the Kurds were brave and loyal allies we had abandoned once before to our eternal disgrace and who deserved our help. Obama got sucked in by that vacuum I talked about earlier. Whether or not he can guide us out of this mess is anyone’s guess. If anyone can, I think it is him, he’s smart and he’s got balls, and he seems to think he can do this by threading a path between total war and just bugging out and not looking back. I’m not sure he can pull it off, but I’m absolutely sure his critics on the Right wouldn’t be able to.

Obama isn’t responsible for this morass any more than Lincoln was responsible for the Civil War. He inherited a lot of history. The ultimate causes and mistakes are partially his, but also go back to his predecessors and to post-WWI European actions in the region, and even Muslim religious politics of the 6th century. But like Lincoln, he will be judged by whether he can pull it off or not.

I can offer no guarantees, but I think he will. I’m glad he’s there.

Years ago, someone (it might even have been one of you) said that America threw away a golden opportunity when it decided 9/11 was the start of a war instead of the start of a worldwide, multinational criminal investigation. People from some 90 countries perished on 9/11, and we would have had much cooperation and support for pursuing the perpetrators as criminals. Had we gone that route, perhaps ISIS never would have come into being.