President Biden has announced that the United States combat mission in Iraq will end...for the third time. But that's not entirely true. Troops will remain there but their role will change to an "advisory" one. We've seen this movie before. Biden wants credit for ending wars, however, he is still leaving troops stationed in the region and promising to observe the situation. This interview previously aired on Peacock on August 16, 2021. Emma Vigeland discusses the never-ending War on Terror with Jacob Silverman.
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Emma Vigeland: Biden announced that we'd no longer be in a combat mission in Iraq by the end of the year. Talk about that announcement and I guess in conjunction with the wind-down in Afghanistan and what these things just truly mean.
Jacob Silverman: Sure well to talk about Iraq first. It is supposedly a change in status that will require some moving of US troops out of Iraq well there are supposedly about 2,500 there now. Though one thing I would note is that often those numbers aren't very accurate. They can be straight up lied about. or they're often the situation is that you have various soldiers intelligence officers people operating under intelligence authorities in which they don't really have to be their presence doesn't have to be reported. So in terms of what might happen soon, I think you'll see a few soldiers leave. Maybe they'll say a few hundred will leave of 2500. And then they'll say that most people are shifting to non-combat roles which means things like training but also providing intelligence, operating drones, surveillance sort of scouting the airspace. And I think what ends up happening is whether it's in Iraq or even some of these other places we're already seeing it is that the u.s claims to be doing this sort of assist and advising role in which we're mostly training and perhaps providing some intelligence. But that quickly morphs into something more. Whether it's accompanying people on raids or even just something like providing close air support which is something that's happening still in Afghanistan. We're pulling out of Afghanistan allegedly. But and that is continuing a process that Donald Trump started. But really we're already providing the existing Afghan government the pretty beleaguered Afghan government with an air force and bombing various Taliban positions to try to slow the advance of the Taliban. So there's a way in which even as we claim to be changing status or even pulling out in Afghanistan to a significant degree the actions we're taking or as you said earlier on, the things we're really doing when it comes down to day-to-day fighting don't necessarily change that much.
Emma Vigeland: So much of this I think is a pr exercise for the people involved and the media really because of many things one is just a belief in the American project the empire the hegemonic nature of American foreign policy. There's that. Two a lack of curiosity about these kinds of topics. And three you know a gutting of international offices by mainstream publications where there's not necessarily an understanding outside of what the pentagon tells you or desire to understand via investigative journalism where they just kind of regurgitate these things. So it's quite easy for pr purposes for Donald Trump or Joe Biden to say oh I’m doing this full withdrawal because it's framed from the perspective of u.s troops we are withdrawing u.s troops combat Americans. They're not going to be in danger when you know as progressives or at least part of my project is I don't want anybody in danger. I don't want to assist our foreign policy assisting in the killing of anybody no matter what nationality they are. And you know framing our foreign policy in a way that maximizes that ideal. So I mean I guess just talk about that dynamic a little bit about how easy it is to say we're withdrawing from a place.
