rssGWOT Was That You Tried To Say?
Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 11:33 am
- 5 Comments
It’s official:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Obama administration has stopped using “war on terror,” breaking with the Bush administration’s terminology in describing the conflict with al Qaeda and militant Islam.
“The administration has stopped using the phrase, and I think that speaks for itself,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters as she traveled here for a United Nations-led conference on Afghanistan.
Substantive comment: perhaps we can have greater precision about what it is we’re fighting.
In 2002, Nicholas Lemann wrote an insightful piece for The New Yorker lamenting how the Bush administration linguistically committed the United States to a broader war against an amorphous foe by using the “war on terror” formulation, rather than focusing on the actually existing al-Qaeda phenomenon, which is dangerous and multifaceted enough. It was noteworthy to see President Obama define the objectives of his Af-Pak strategy around al-Qaeda — not its Taliban adjuncts, but al-Qaeda, since the United States’ interest in confronting the Taliban is a derivative of its interest in confronting al-Qaeda — and not a slipperier term.
I don’t know if the phrase Brian Beutler has reported on, “overseas contingency operation,” is going to be the replacement term, since that appears to describe discrete campaigns. But it’s probably better to simply state that the United States is at war with al-Qaeda, because it is. Not Hezbollah, not Hamas, not the Sadrist current and so forth; but al-Qaeda.
Super-substantive comment: Hey yo, John Nagl. You should take this change personally.
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5 Comments
Comment posted March 31, 2009 @ 11:27 am
War is defined as armed conflict between nations. Terrorism is a concept, a philosophy. The committing of an act of terror on civilians for whatever reason is a Crime. In some cases it is a crime against humanity.
And, as much as we like to “war” on someone it is very inefficient, costly and unproductive in reaching a real solution to a problem, unless we wipe out every last person and his friends and allies, and …
Treating the terror problem as a crime allows us to use the police forces of the world. It allows us to use the established police, prisons, courts, lawyers, in other words the whole world can work against terror. It also allows the use of diplomacy and foreign aid such as food and medicine in areas that the globalization of industry has left behind, the areas that contain those frustrated and willing to become terrorists.
A gun never changed anyone's mind. It just kills someone and makes all his friends and neighbors mad at the killer. The Military mission is for DEFENSE. It is not designed to be a policeman, a diplomat, an organization that gets involved in political debate and determination. The military is made up of men and women that honorably fight and die for a cause. We do them a huge disservice when we ask them to undertake missions that they cannot possibly succeed at.
If we let the police fight terror as a crime we can come together internationally against those that seek to kill innocent civilians for political reasons. We can eliminate the need for gulags where untrained and unprofessional guards as well as intelligence officers torture inmates, knowing that such is a crime and produces no trustworthy information. We can eliminate the accumulations of thousands of prisoners of war being held til the end of the war that we freely admit might not have an end.
If we treat terrorism as a crime our Constitution will not have to be violated, ignored nor changed by fiat.
We will have no need for a “War President” that assumes unconstitutional powers that take away our rights while claiming to fight to give rights to oppressed folks.
Terrorism is a crime. Stop the “war on…” mentality. Look at our history. We have used the “War on poverty, drugs, crime…etc” as a way for a politician to show the public “we are doing our utmost to fight this (latest political) problem”.
It is a Conn job that is expensive both in lives and money. It does not work.
Comment posted April 1, 2009 @ 6:30 pm
the war on murder must be won!!!!!!!!!!!
or else we should just give up!
Comment posted April 2, 2009 @ 1:30 am
the war on murder must be won!!!!!!!!!!!
or else we should just give up!
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