Iraq War Vet: "The Hubris Of The American Political Machine" Created Afghanistan War

Mike Prysner (), an Iraq veteran, antiwar activist & organizer, producer of Empire Files () & cohost of the Eyes Left Podcast () discusses why the United States invaded Afghanistan and what made them stay even when they knew it was doomed. "It's very similar to the Vietnam War, where once the White House and the Pentagon knew we've lost, we can't win, instead of just saying, 'well, if we've lost and we can't win, and the outcome of the conquest by our enemies is the same no matter what, why don't we just leave right now,? And stop killing people and stop having our own people killed?' But the hubris of the American political machine doesn't allow that. What president wants to admit defeat at the hands of an insurgency that's using rifles from a hundred years ago? No one wants to be in that position of admitting defeat. And so what we've seen over the past more than a decade has really been a slow motion retreat by the U S empire, knowing that eventually they're going to fully leave, but, like Nixon, did the strategy of peace through honor, meaning 'yes, we've lost. We got to end the war, but we're going to kill a bunch more people on our way out. So it doesn't seem like the empire has just been defeated so badly'."

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