Andrew Cockburn, ‘The Spoils of War: Power, Profit and the American War Machine’(Verso)
Why is Joe Biden claiming that America’s ‘forever wars’, have ended? He withdrew 2,500 troops from Afghanistan and allowed the Taliban to take over the country, but the US continues to send drones to kill alleged terrorists in Afghanistan and in large parts of Africa and the Middle East.
Why does Biden claim to have made America safer when extremist Islamist groups increasingly occupy large parts of the world? Is not the ‘war on terror’, the largely hidden-from-view, long-distance campaign of assassinations conducted by the US for many years, the ultimate forever war? And why are Biden and Boris Johnson hailing a new defence pact to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia as a security triumph, when its main consequence is to provoke China and alienate European allies?
