Apparantly the "War on Terrorism" is no longer a fashionable name in Washington. The Bush Administration is re-branding the war "The Long War [1].
The Long War?
Forget that! Let's admit what it really is, with hat tip to Joseph Haldeman: We are in the midst of the Forever War.
We have abandoned pretence. All we are admitting to now is that we are at war. Why? Who cares! Oil? Maybe. Fighting terrorism? Sometimes, if it's convenient. A Crusade against Islam? Only in private do we admit that! Lucrative no-bid contracts for Halliburton and Bechtel?
Bingo!
That is the only excuse for the Forever War. Because, a real war on Terrorism would look nothing like the Forever War envisioned by the extreme right wing in the United States. The real war on Terrorism is what Democrats had envisioned: go after al Qaeda specifically, cutting off their funding, hitting their training camps, forcing Arab governments to abandon their support for anti-American Madrasses that feed into al Qaeda. Build up alliances across the globe. Fight the funding of terrorism and become part of the world community. That is what Democrats envisioned going back to Clinton and even, perhaps, the honestly elected Bush after he had freed his foreign policy from the Taliban-supporting days.
And the current, appointed Bush had the chance. We HAD the alliances. We HAD the international backing. We were poised to take down international terrorism in cooperation with the UN and the vast majority of nations on earth. And we started it...in Afghanistan. Even Lybia reluctantly admitted we were justified there.
But Bush fucked up. Yes. I use that term with all due consideration. Bush fucked up so royally that rather than having a targeted war, we have The Forever War!
And what is the plan? Build international support, improve our image world wide, and plan a strategy for "nothing less than the defeat of al-Qaeda across the world and its associated movements strung together by extremist ideology," says Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, US Central Command.
In other words, we have to start the Forever War by fixing everything we lost when Bush abandoned the real war against those who attacked America and invaded Iraq. The first step in the Forever War is to try and find the rewind and erase buttons and to pretend Iraq never happened. It's all about al Qaeda, right? Alway was! Ignore the whole Iraq fiasco because it never happened. Please, world, forgive us and help us fight terrorism.
Make no mistake. This rebranding of the war is the clearest admission of failure this administration has ever made. It is a desperate move indicating that they have no idea what they are doing. Some generals always wanted to fight the real war, the war on al Qaeda, and can't believe we pissed it all away by invading Iraq. Some generals want to cut and run, because they know we are barrelling down the same path we did in Vietnam only writ larger. Most of the world now looks at us with loathing, wondering what kind of idiots we are. Halliburton doesn't care what we call it as long as the war is a long, LONG war...a war that will forever fill their coffers and the coffers of Exxon and Bechtel until their CEOs are drowning in dollars.
And you know who else sees this as the Forever war and is pleased as punch at every single move Bush has made since the decision to invade? Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Bush has been their gift from Allah--an Americn President who fits exactly the caricature of America that they portray. Bush and bin Laden, who know many of the same people, are both thrilled to have the Forever War.
For the rest of us? Watch our economy fall, watch our soldiers die and watch this quagmire drag on a long, long, LONG time. Watch it drag on forever.
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