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US military forces engaged in front-line operations cannot suddenly change their military aim into a benign effort to revive a war damaged community or country. The immense resources of the US military could be used by fully functioning aid agencies through a mutually beneficient arrangement. This has happened in Darfur, Somalia. British armed forces invaded Iraq in 2003 and then commenced donating single bottles of water to Iraqis who promptly helped themselves to boxes of these donations. British soldiers could not comprehend their obvious greed - a riot ensued. Lesson learned.

World War 2 ensured the severely damaged German and Japanese economies benefited from the US Marshall Plan. Germany changed its currency from Reichsmark to Deutschemark and recovered to become the third largest economy after the US and Hong Kong. The UK entered World War 2 with an empire eventually repaying the US the $4.5 billion lend lease loan by 2006. The UK, the victors, lost an empire to become today, an island empire, in decline.

The US is now the only superpower. The former Soviet Union wasted 70 years on the failed communist system losing the independent states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine etc., and reducing its population to c.100 million people. Russia lost heavily in Afghanistan. The current EU and US military effort in Afghanistan must succeed. Afghanistan grows and exports 90% of the heroin used by disaffected western youth. The future of western civilised society crucially depends on defeating the Taliban who openly profit from heroin cultivation. The EU and US cannot afford large scale casualties against pre-prepared Taliban strongholds. The Taliban care nothing about large scale casualties because it is worth their while to engage in this high attrition rate against casualty conscious western forces. The Afghan presidential elections were fraudulent.

Somalia cost the US c.75 casualties in 1991, when President Clinton withdrew US forces. The US returned to Somalia in 2007, when, allied with Ethiopia, with a woeful human rights record, the US and the legitimate Somali government expelled the Islamic party forces from Somalia. Somalia is abandoned, a rogue state, which exports disaffected Al-Qaeda militants to plague western society. Somalia, a war battered community is the prime example of what western society must avoid in future.

The US military is not neutral. Lebanon is supplied with US military hardware -a death sentence in the volatile Middle East. The potential to succeed is obvious, however local anti-US sentiment must be considered. The US under the Obama administration has exposed Iran as a pariah nation without firing a shot whilst securing Russia's sanction against Iran by cancelling missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. President Obama uses non-military clever rhetoric to secure United States needs in a fractious world. Well done.

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