Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

— Santayana  

President Obama has become just another scurvy politician.

Campaigning for president, Obama inspired hope for a benighted nation. Now, he plunges America back to that darkness by ordering a surge of 30,000 soldiers in Afghanistan.

Barack, we took you for better.

You are an intelligent guy, yet like the Bourbons you have learned nothing. You are a warmonger like the man you defeated. You have turned your devoted supporters into cynics. You have listened to the Joint Chiefs rather than using common sense. This war-besotted country continues its march of folly.

Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. Pakistan. It’s grotesque. It’s shameless.

Afghanistan is a quagmire. An unwinnable war. An inhospitable land, far more so than Vietnam.

And warlords. And drug barons. And graft. And fraud. And a president who stole the election. And the Taliban with the patience of Job outlasting the quick-fix Americans.

A Truthout online editorial asks: “When will we learn that Afghan ‘governance’ is a fiction and that not even more U.S. troops … will change the nature of a tribal culture that is at civil war?”

That civil war has raged for 36 years between the Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group, and the Tajiks. As former Marine Cpl. Rick Reyes, an Afghan vet, points out: “There is no military solution. …The problems in Afghanistan are social problems that a military cannot fix.”

You cannot win a guerrilla war. You cannot win the hearts and minds of people who despise you for an eight-year occupation.

Raúl Benoit of Dairo la Prensa is right to note that the U.S occupying forces in Afghanistan and Iraq “sin against humanity.” Their “killing, torture and degradation have sown hatred and resentment.”

Yet Americans must continue to die for what Norman Solomon calls “Washington’s hollow politics.” America willingly spends trillions for useless wars but balks at spending millions for universal health.

Indeed, the Congressional Research Service says sending one soldier a year to Afghanistan costs $1 million.

For the surge in Afghanistan, Obama raised that hoary shibboleth of national security: that the Taliban and al-Qaida must be defeated to protect America. Crimes committed in the name of national security are unconscionable.

The withdrawal timetable of July 2011 is ludicrous. The scornful response to a preposterous story is: “Tell it to the marines.”

The U.S war in Afghanistan could well last a decade before a future president has the sense to declare victory and pull out.

No one from Alexander the Great, Genghis Kahn and the powerful Soviets has conquered Afghanistan. It’s a graveyard of empires. Obama’s empire is also doomed to failure.

Obama urges Afghanistan to do more to “save itself,” more soldiers and more police. But it’s irrational to expect Afghans to fight Afghans at the behest of America.

Meanwhile, the war president has stepped up the fight in Pakistan, ordering the CIA to increase bombing by killer drones fired from the comfort of headquarters at Langley, Va.

Despite the Constitution’s requirement that only Congress can declare war, the imperial presidency orders wars today. Harry Truman was the last president who truly believed that the civilian arm was the commander-in-chief.

But today we have a spineless president. Obama should have fired Gen. Stanley McChrystal instead of accepting his blarney. Obama flip-flopped on releasing photos of U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, violating the Freedom of Information Act.

And he maintains the endless madness of world dominion. America has 134 bases in Japan alone. Why, for God’s sake? Congress ignores such questions. The military-industrial-political complex always wins over sanity.

Politicians have to sell their souls to get elected and sell it again to get re-elected. Obama is no different.

His recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery to honor the dead from Iraq and Afghanistan was a must for a president. But the tragic truth is that those soldiers died in vain.

They did not give their lives for their country. The nation took their lives.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are propaganda wars, pretending to bring them freedom. They are also class wars fought by Latinos, blacks and poor whites.

Politics is an immoral and unethical business. Politicians must proclaim such untruths as America is the greatest nation on earth — if not the greatest nation in history.Meanwhile, the corporate press in America cheers on a debacle.

The daily outrage of the Bush administration has become the outrage of Obama’s wars. The irony is stunning as he heads to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

Jake Highton teaches journalism at the university of Nevada, Reno. You can reach him at jake@unr.edu.