With statements like this, does anyone think the US' wars will ever end?

[sad sally]

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=64961?du

The United States must continue until achieving final victory over terror, Panetta said as he presided over the transfer of command at Special Operations Command from Navy Adm. Eric T. Olson to Navy Adm. William H. McRaven.

Continuing operations against the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies will send a strong message of American resolve, the secretary said.

“From this tragedy we draw even greater inspiration to carry on the fight, to continue to hunt down those who would do us harm,” Panetta said. “We will never stop. We will fight on until we have achieved the final goal of victory over terrorism.”



Benjamin Franklin said that "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

We are losing liberty and freedom by continuing this forever fight against terrorism. Terrorism, by its very definition, sets out to provoke terror. The decade-long and multiple Countries wars the US has engaged in against terrorists has created more terrorists than it has eliminated. With statements like Sec Panetta made yesterday, if they are true, the US will be involved in war forever...

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Fuck Panetta.

Ever see a liberal SecDef?

Weird isn't it? It falls outside the laws of probability in an unfixed game.

[sad sally]

10. Yeah, weird is the right word.

from Tom Engelhardt's What Our Secretaries of Defense Keep Getting Wrong

It's time, once and for all, to lock the gates. It's time to use the US military only in the genuine defense of this country.

It doesn't seem like the hardest lesson in human history to grasp, but it has been: don't go in. This isn't a utopian's recipe, but a realist's. You just have to remind yourself that your intervention will never turn out the way you fantasize or plan, no matter what your fantasies or plans may be.

Let me say it one more time because I know no one's listening: don't do it.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/robert-gates-afghanistan-trip?page=2?du

[ixion]

2. The are endless by design.

And Panetta is one of the fascists that help put it together.

[indepat]

29. They will continue as long as others continue to fund them

:patriot:

[valerief]

3. It's the thieves' biggest pipeline to the US Treasury, so no, they will NEVER END. nt

[daleanime]

4. It will take a war....

to end those wars, a civil war-the bottom 90% vs the top 1% of america. Until that happens the war machine will continue to feed off all of us.:banghead:

[abelenkpe]

5. Congress needs to defund the war or it will drain every cent

and destroy this country.

[hlthe2b]

6. I fear that the administration has factored in the explosive increase in unemployment

that would come from the immediate downsizing of the military if we withdraw... Could it really be that "tactical?"

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Better to kill the cannon-fodder than give them jobs doing something useful?

How about transferring them to something akin to the CCC?

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. With the money saved by ending the wars and shutting down our

overseas empire, we could GUARANTEE $50,000/yr for every unemployed person in the country.

[AndyTiedye]

16. So Upsize the Corps of Engineers

Plenty of work for them here.

[sad sally]

17. Yes! Every aging levy is America could be restored.

Employment opportunities for so many.

[gratuitous]

8. "We will never stop"

Spoken like a True Believer. Leon Panetta will never want for anything the rest of his life.

[Angry Dragon]

9. Kill one terrorist, create 5 more

more wars to come, more money spent, more dead Americans

[newfie11]

11. I pity the poor people living in those countries

They have every reason to hate America now.

[sad sally]

13. And we just keep adding to the number of Countries that hate America.

An American military drone aircraft attacked several Somalis in the militant group the Shabab late last month, the officials said, killing at least one of its midlevel operatives and wounding others.

The strike was carried out by the same Special Operations Command unit now battling militants in Yemen, and it represented an intensification of an American military campaign in a mostly lawless region where weak governments have allowed groups with links to Al Qaeda to flourish.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/world/africa/02somalia.html?pagewanted=al?du


all in the name of fighting terrorism

[arcane1]

12. He needs to go.

Like Yesterday!

[snappyturtle]

14. Way to go Panetta: use terror to fight terror.....maybe it's the old eye for an eye meme? nt

:sarcasm:

[drpepper67]

18. What's the longest period of time you personally remember NOT being at war?

[Politicalboi]

19. 9/11 is alive and well

All this over an inside job. This is their excuse for war for decades to come. This is their excuse for us paying more money for "security". This is their excuse for arresting people over nothing. It has all worked flawlessly for 10 years now.

[Bluerthanblue]

20. well Ben Franklin also said "there has never been a good war

or a bad peace".

:shrug:

The idea of a 'war on terror' is an oxymoron imo.

War is terror- The only war to end all war that is ever going to be 'won' would be one that involved making man-kind extinct, it seems to me.

[Uncle Joe]

21. You can't win a war against an emotion anymore than you can win a war against a drug.

Thanks for the thread, sad sally.

[sinkingfeeling]

22. Funny how they never stop to think that maybe over the last 9 years, some Taliban

chief said the same thing about us.

[dtexdem]

23. I don't care what words anyone mouths -- no, Idon't think U.S. wars will ever end.

On the other hand, U.S. involvement in the War in Iraq and that in Afghanistan certainly CAN end. Even that in Vietnam did, but it also brought down a Democratic president.

[TheKentuckian]

24. "achieve final victory over terrorism"???? Leon is just as batty as his last few predecessors

Final victory over a tactic? Flat out crazy and an affirmation that the wars are eternal since there can be no "final victory".

This Administration is mired in the exact same idiocy as the last cabal.

[Rex]

25. Wow Panetta is a fucking idiot...are we in trouble with

him in charge or what! He is talking the same BULLSHIT we heard in the GWB years. Hey FUCKWAD, you CANNOT 'achieve' a victory over terrorism...it is a state of mind and not just some fools with RPGs and a dogma! So we will never leave Afghanistan or Iraq...GREAT! :(

[Initech]

26. The war on terror isn't supposed to end. It's designed to have no end game.

[ixion]

27. exactly n/t

[PhoenixAbove]

28. K&R

[_ed_]

30. Obama in 2008:

"Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have reduced the pace of military transformation and have revealed our lack of preparation for defensive and stability operation. This Administration has overextended our military."

Does that still apply to his administration?

It's no surprise that Obama picked another warmonger for SecDef.