Wars in the Middle East will cost the U.S. trillions more
Angry Planet
Matthew Gault
4.2 • 898 Ratings
🗓️ 21 July 2016
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The United States is at war and has been for more than a decade. Although major combat operations in Iraq in Afghanistan have ended, America still maintains a presence in both and will for years to come. It also funds Syrian rebels, bombs Islamic State strongholds in the region and runs drones from Afghanistan to the Horn of Africa.
With America fighting on so many fronts, it’s hard to understand the Pentagon’s strategy or the endgame for the various conflicts. Retired U.S. Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich says it feels that way because it is that way. According to Bacevich, the American military is fighting a war that began decades before 9/11.
This week on War College, Bacevich walks us through what he calls America’s War With the Greater Middle East and tells us how it started and why he thinks it must end.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Love this podcast. |
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| 0:19.0 | The opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the participants, not of Reuters News. There is no question that by the time the final bill is paid we will have spent trillions of dollars for our post 9-11 wars. |
| 0:31.0 | Trillions of dollars. For what? |
| 0:34.0 | What? |
| 0:35.0 | What was the exact moment |
| 0:42.0 | what was the exact moment when the United States became inextricably bound up with the Middle East? |
| 0:48.0 | Was it with the invasion of Iraq in 2003? |
| 0:51.0 | Was it the intervention in Kuwait in 1991? |
| 0:55.0 | This week on War College, we talked to someone who puts that date a little further back. |
| 1:05.0 | You're listening to War College, a weekly discussion of a world in conflict focusing on the stories behind the front lines. |
| 1:13.0 | Here's your host, Jason Fields. |
| 1:16.0 | Hello and I'm Matthew Galt contributing editor at Wars Boring. Today we're speaking with retired U.S. Army Colonel and historian Andrew Bessovich. |
| 1:37.0 | Bessovich is a conservative who's long been critical of U.S. foreign and military policy. His newest book, |
| 1:44.7 | America's War for the Greater Middle East, details U.S. involvement in the |
| 1:48.7 | region over the past four decades. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us. Glad to be with you. Well, you've... for Can we just start off with a very very basic question which is what is America's military |
| 2:05.3 | strategy right now as you see it? There is none. I mean my book is intended to be a history book. |
| 2:14.1 | It's not a policy book. |
| 2:15.3 | And the purpose of the book is to recount what has now |
| 2:19.7 | become an endless string of interventions, large and small, brief and protracted, dating from 1980 and continuing |
... |
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