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US-Waged Middle East Wars Were ‘Pointless and Genocidal,’ Reflects Navy Veteran

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 08.06.2024

Whether it is Joe Biden, the current incumbent of the White House, or those preceding him, like 44th president Barack Obama, manipulative militaristic rhetoric results in senseless wars waged and paid for by the US, a US Navy veteran told Sputnik, recalling his own rueful experience.

Joe Biden slipped into his default mode of manipulating historical facts and crowd emotions in his D-Day anniversary remarks on Friday.

Russia was typically presented as ‘the enemy’, while the US on the ‘right side of history’ as it continues to fuel the Ukraine proxy conflict.

Biden had no qualms about drawing a cynical comparison: if we do not help Ukraine against Russia, we will betray the memory of our grandfathers who fought the Nazis.

“We will not walk away. Because if we do, Ukraine will be subjugated and it will not end there. Ukraine’s neighbors will be threatened, all of Europe will be threatened,” claimed Biden. The Democrat added that to “surrender” would mean “forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches. Make no mistake, we will not bow down. We will not forget.”

At the same ceremony, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was more blunt, saying that, “if the troops of the world’s democracies could risk their lives for freedom then surely the citizens of the world’s democracy can risk our comfort for freedom now.”

Austin is an old hand at dissimulating when it comes to Washington’s true goals in pursuing the Ukraine ‘project.’ Testifying in front of the House Armed services Committee, he claimed the long-term strategy for propping up the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev was to make sure Ukraine remains “a democratic, independent, sovereign country.” He served up the batch of outright lies without batting an eye.

With his recent rhetoric, Biden may as well have taken a page from the pretentious and meaningless language used by former president Barack Obama in his speech at West Point Military Academy in May 2010. Obama explained why it was necessary to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan without any clear strategy.

“We toppled the Taliban regime, now we must break the momentum of a Taliban insurgency and train Afghan security forces. We have supported the election of a sovereign government, now we must strengthen its capacities,” he said. We know only too well when and how the Afghan debacle ended for the US, with America’s humiliating withdrawal from Kabul in August 2021.

The US launched its invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. At the time, Washington justified the move on the basis that Osama bin Laden had masterminded the attacks, and that the Taliban had offered sanctuary to members of al-Qaeda. The US invasion and occupation claimed the lives of thousands of US soldiers, and more than 100,000 Afghan troops, police, and civilians.

Before entering the White House, then-Senator Obama had campaigned on a vow to give the US military a new mission: ending the war in Iraq.

The US-led coalition invaded Iraq in 2003 without a UN mandate, falsely accusing then-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein of possessing weapons of mass destruction. That war cost the lives of over 4,700 US and allied servicemen, and hundreds of thousands — or even millions — of Iraqis.

One of those who fell for Obama’s campaign rhetoric has regretted it for the rest of his life.

Mike James, a navy veteran and a Mass Communication Specialist Petty Officer who served in Iraq in 2008, told Sputnik he was “inspired by all of Obama’s rhetoric” to join the military.

“I was 25 years old when I joined the military. So I was a little bit older than most of my peers,” he recalled.

“Leading up to that time was the end of the Bush presidency, and Obama was campaigning as the president who was going to end the wars, … on drawing down the war [in Iraq],” James said. “So I thought that it would be a good time to join the military. And I was inspired by all of Obama’s rhetoric. I joined the military.”

The gullible young man who set off to boot camp in 2008 was in for a rude awakening. He ended up witnessing both of the “pointless, genocidal wars.”

“I thought, man, both of these wars that I participated in were stupid and pointless,” James said. “And all the Iraqis and all the Afghans that I met were nice people, gracious people, hospitable people. And for me to show up as an Imperial stormtrooper was wholly inappropriate and, frankly, genocidal.”

While he “never fired a shot in combat,” instead using his camera to document what was going on around him, the former naval officer said he felt “complacent,” an “actor in these imperial genocidal projects.”

“I fundamentally regret it. It’s embarrassing. I don’t brag that I’m a veteran. I don’t talk to people about my veteran status unless they ask,” said James.

‘Complacent actor’ in US’ ‘imperial genocidal projects’

To this day, Navy veteran Mike James regrets ending up being complacent in senseless wars waged by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Turning to Washington’s current belligerent stance amid the ongoing NATO proxy war in Ukraine, James speculated that the “age of the American military hegemony is over”. Furthermore, he noted that from what he could see around him, the Western economy, “built on its ability to inflict violence anywhere in the world at any given time” was on a cliff edge.

“Everything is propped up on that… I mean, there’s very little industry around me of all the people I know. I don’t see factory workers like I don’t see people going out and getting jobs and doing well,” James noted. “Everybody I know, everybody I see is, is just barely hanging on in this economy. Everybody’s piled on with debt with loans and car bills and just trying to get by.”

“The true believers within the Pentagon and the military brass and the contractors, all these fascistic private contractors that are ruling the world right now, once they realize… that it’s over, I can just see the bottom dropping out on this thing and the economy really changing for the worse,” he concluded.

June 8, 2024 - Posted by aletho | Militarism, Wars for Israel | Afghanistan, Iraq, Obama, United States