After Afghanistan, America’s Next War By Owei Lakemfa
The peace-loving United States, US, President Joe Biden on Wednesday September 15, 2021 announced the birth of a new trilateral military alliance of Australia, UK, and U.S with the acronym, AUKUS. The alliance he said is to take on the threats of the 21st Century.
Biden argued that the way to achieve this is for the three countries to maintain and expand their “edge in military capabilities and critical technologies, such as cyber, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and undersea domains.”
China which appears to be the primary target of this nuclear-powered tri-continental alliance described it as a Cold War mentality.
The new American military initiative is coming seventeen days after the unipolar power withdrew its last soldier from Afghanistan. Doubtlessly, America is still leaking its wounds after the twenty-year debacle in Afghanistan in which it lost 6,296 of its citizens including 2,450 combat troops, and expended $2.26 trillion. But while searching for countries to dump the Afghanistan ‘refugees’ it is uprooting from their country, and while seemingly sober, America has not decided to withdraw from the many conflicts it is directly or indirectly involved. These include the wars in Syria and Yemen, and the debacles in Iraq and Libya which it invaded in 2003 and 2011 respectively.
Today, there are countries America is bating to go to war by imposing punishing sanctions and blockading them. These include Iran which America in 2019 without providing any proof, accused of bombing oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Another is Venezuela against which American President Barack Obama issued a presidential order on March 9, 2015 declaring it a “threat to its national security” and imposing crippling sanctions. In fact, today, there is a Venezuelan Special Envoy, Alex Saab who the Americans are trying to extradite from Cape Verde for the alleged crime of undertaking a humanitarian Special Mission of buying food and medicines from Iran. There is also small Cuba, which the US has invaded four times; 1906, 1912,1917 and 1961 and on which it has imposed unilateral and punishing sanctions including food, fuel and medicines for six decades now.
In fact, I am sure the planners in Washington are planning the next major war for the US. You see, the American establishment is a warmonger which rejoices when there is war or the prospect of one. The US defence spending of $714 billion in 2020 is projected to grow to $900 billion in 2030. This and its defence industry, need wars to grow. Internally, there are 393 million guns in private homes. That means 120.5 private guns for every 10 Americans or 46 per-cent of the populace owning guns.
Since independence in 1776, that is in the last 245 years, America has been at war for 227 years, or more than 92 per-cent of its independent existence. Since independence, it has invaded at least 70 countries, fifty of them since World War II ended in 1945.
America has a history of invading small, weak countries such as Panama and Grenada. In fact, the US invading Grenada for one of the most ridiculous reasons in the world, was like an elephant deciding not just to fight an ant, but also mobilising eight other creatures to join it in the ‘war’
As at the time of the invasion on October 25, 1983, the American population was 233.8 million and Grenadians were a mere 96,019. The core American military were 1,941,943. That meant that there were 20 American soldiers for every Grenadian!
A radical Grenadian, Maurice Bishop had seized power on March 13, 1979. His New Jewel Movement removed the government of Eric Gairy, an eccentric man who claimed to commune with aliens from outer space. Cuba offered to build tiny Grenada, an international airport that would boost its tourist economy. But the US said the airport was a threat to it claiming it could be used by the Soviet Union to transport weapons to Latin American insurgents. On October 12, 1983, Bishop’s Deputy, Bernard Coard overthrew him. Seven days later, an enraged populace marched on Bishop’s home where he was under house arrest and set him free. The charismatic Bishop then led the protesters to seize the army barracks. In the process, he was arrested and summarily executed. Then President Ronald Reagan claimed that Grenada may no longer be safe for about 1,000 American citizens who were mainly students at the St George’s Medical School. But rather than evacuate them, he invaded Grenada. The 6,000 American troops that invaded the tiny country under ‘Operation Urgent Fury’ were backed by troops from eight other countries in what America officially described as a “non-combatant evacuation operation.” Despite having no chance against the mighty American forces and its allies, the Grenadians put up a stiff fight killing 19 American soldiers with 116 injured. On the other hand, the Americans killed 45 Grenadian soldiers, injured 358 in addition to killing 24 civilians.
When the America troops ordered the Cuban workers constructing the airport to surrender, they refused on the grounds that Cubans do not surrender to any power. The American soldiers used maximum force, killing 25 of the workers, injured 59 and captured 638.
The Grenadian invasion appeared so senseless that even Britain, America’s staunchest supporter, condemned it. After the invasion, a furious British Prime Minster, Margaret Thatcher wrote President Ronald Reagan: “This action will be seen as an intervention by a Western country in the internal affairs of a small independent nation, however unattractive its regime.”
Some think the unreasonable invasion of Grenada was Reagan’s way of venting his anger over the bombing of American and French troops in Beirut, Lebanon, two days earlier. In that attack, 220 US Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers were killed.
In 1950, America sent troops to fight on the side of the South in the Korean Civil War which ended three years later with a divided country. Today, seven decades later, about 30,000 American troops remain in that country costing America over $3 billion annually with South Korea having to pick $1Billion of the bill. There is no indication that America wants to withdraw its troops from South Korea as it has done in Afghanistan.
I am trying to wrap my head round the next country the US will go to war with. I think Russia or China will be too strong, so I am ruling them out. America may also be unwilling to take on North Korea which is busy testing its nuclear weapons. The lot I think will be between Venezuela and Iran, though I think the latter is the most likely.
Biden joked about the trilateral abbreviation on Wednesday:
“AUKUS — it sounds strange, all these acronyms, but it’s a good one.” I say, yea, POTUS, because it is hocus-pocus.
