[Slashdot] We Are Not At War

(Some of the parents to this post were also quite interesting)

(Score:4, Insightful)
by Catbeller (118204) on Tuesday January 10, @04:17AM (#14429653)
(http://slashdot.org/)

They believe it because buildings blew up and their President, along with EVERY SINGLE NEWS SOURCE in the mainstream media, has repeated the meme until it became a really real fact.

War exists between nations. Anything else is a metaphor, OR a lie. In the war on "terror", it's a lie. Terror is a name we give to guerilla warfare practiced against civilians by anational networks. If someone we like practices it, it's freedom fighting. If not, they're terrorists.

The cool thing about a war against unspecified enemies located in no particular place (if they exist at all; find and watch "The Power of Nightmares") is that it begins when Bush says it does, and ends when he declares it "over". Give it two seconds of thought: how in hell do you win against "terror"? This is a Forever War.

The neocons have stated - categorically -- that war gives the President unlimited powers not only over the military as CinC, but over the civilian population as well. And no law applies to him if he deems it a hindrance. No exaggeration. Lookee at the recent anti-torture bill; after signing, Bush signed an addendum -- an understanding, sort of an opinion piece -- stating that he would disregard the law if it suits his needs. The Forever War gives us a Forever King. I'd use the term dictator, but it's so loaded that the rightists moderating would bury this postimmediately...

We ain't at war with Afghanistan either. They didn't attack us; they just hosted the attackers, and wouldn't let us take them without proof, which Bush categorically denied them. He wanted "bombs falling in 30 days", and Afghanistan volunteered for the sacrificial lamb position. What we did was not war, and it was not moral. And we've made a mess of it.

We ain't at war with Iraq, as it never attacked and did not threaten to. We just lied, invaded, occupied, and stole the oil fields and are building a Pentagon-like embassy forthe long haul. We're fighting an insurgency from many fronts, united only in their belief that we are lying a-holes and need to get the hell out. You don't war with insurgents, you try to kill or imprison them. The only way to kill a real insurgency is to murder everyone -- because anyone left alive is just a seed waiting to sprout new insurgency. Fallujah, anyone?

We may soon attack Iran and then perhaps Syria, also under false pretenses. Bush has been delivering "Iran is a pack of terrorists" packets to Arab leaders for the past month or so, so his boys haven't given up on their Project for the New American Century yet. It's the Domino Theory all over again, only they want to be the domino players. It was a silly theory in the 50s and 60s, and it's doubly silly now. Counties aren't domino pieces, and they don't "fall" when you push them. And beware what you wish for, neocons, because people might really want a democratically elected religious dictatorship that will ally itself with other Godly dictatorships. People LIKE dictators, if they agree with them.

Thinking about it, the Forever War generates the fantasy enemy it proclaims existed in the first place, even if it really didn't. It's self-renewing. And like the first Forever War against "communism", it is making a lot of people so very, very rich and others so very, very powerful.