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<\/picture><\/div>\n\nor then-US President George W. Bush in April 2003 in
\nMoscow.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a9\u00a0<\/span>Getty Images \/\u00a0<\/span>Oleg Nikishin<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Washington is where securing political power means never having to say you\u2019re sorry\u00a0\u2013 regardless of how many thousands or millions of people you might have gotten killed. Tribalism is what keeps the perpetrators from ever being held accountable.<\/p>\n
Consider, for example, this month\u2019s\u00a0Axios\/Ipsos poll\u00a0<\/a>showing that more than six in ten US adults believe that George W. Bush\u2019s 2003 invasion of Iraq was a mistake. While it might seem encouraging that most Americans have come to realize that the Iraq debacle was a bad move \u2013 sort of like recognizing that the sun comes up in the East \u2013 a glance beneath the headline number reveals that voters haven\u2019t really learned anything.<\/p>\n You see, two decades on from a war that was started on false pretenses and was illegal under the UN Charter, 58% of Republicans still believe that the Bush administration was right to launch the invasion (compared to 26% of Democrats). They still feel this way despite a bevy of troubling truths that should be clear to everyone by now, including the fact that the whole basis for the invasion \u2013 the hype that Saddam Hussein had obtained weapons of mass destruction \u2013 was a sham.<\/p>\n It was a sham that cost US taxpayers over\u00a0$2 trillion<\/a>, helped give rise to ISIS and killed or maimed tens of thousands of American troops. Along the way, this bogus war also killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and left the country shattered, even to the present day. The cherry on top is that it also strengthened Washington\u2019s arch-enemy, Iran.<\/p>\n It\u2019s almost incomprehensible that any Americans, other than the war criminals themselves, would still defend such a fiasco \u2013 unless one factors in the level of tribalism that currently pervades the US political system. Rank-and-file members of the red team and the blue team can see no evil nor hear no evil when it comes to their tribe. Their\u00a0\u201cleaders\u201d<\/em>\u00a0are all on the same team, the one that keeps the masses warring with each other rather than turning their pitchforks and torches against the ruling class.<\/p>\n As the late, great US comedian George Carlin famously said, America\u2019s\u00a0\u201creal owners\u201d<\/em>\u00a0count on the people remaining\u00a0\u201cwillfully ignorant\u201d<\/em>\u00a0of what\u2019s being done to them and devoid of critical thinking skills.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s a big club, and you ain\u2019t in it. You and I are not in the big club. And by the way, it\u2019s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The big club has been spectacularly successful in dumbing down and dividing the US populace to the point that the masters are essentially immune from ever having to answer for their blunders and crimes. Principled thinking is extinct. If wrongdoing by one of the tribal chiefs gets exposed, his or her followers shrug off the truth and point to allegedly worse sins by the rival tribe. In a pinch, they can even blame the rival tribe for their chief\u2019s transgression.<\/p>\n Case in point: President Joe Biden\u2019s administration botched the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan so badly that the Taliban was able to seize control of Kabul even before Washington\u2019s chaotic exit was completed. Thousands of Afghan collaborators and US citizens were left behind. Thirteen US troops were brought home in body bags.<\/p>\n Hundreds of Afghans also died during the\u00a0chaotic evacuation, including seven children and three other civilians who were killed in a drone strike after US forces mistook an aid worker for an ISIS-K terrorist. Pentagon officials lied and concealed what they knew about the strike. Days later, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley insisted that the attack was\u00a0\u201crighteous\u201d<\/em>\u00a0and that an ISIS facilitator had been killed. A US military investigation showed that senior officers were told within three hours of the attack that children had been killed.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, supporters of the blue team dismissed criticism of how the US withdrawal was handled and blamed Biden\u2019s predecessor, former president Donald Trump, for essentially everything that went wrong. Secretary of State Antony Blinken cited Trump\u2019s agreement with the Taliban to end the 20-year conflict, saying,\u00a0\u201cWe inherited a deadline. We did not inherit a plan.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Congressman Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, helpfully replied,\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s amazing that it wasn\u2019t much, much worse.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n