Global War On Terror no more
I see from various news reports that Secretary Clinton, and therefore Obama, will no longer use the phrase “War On Terror.”
Too bad no one has told Bin Laden and the Taliban and Iran and Hamas and Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Meanwhile, Americans’ confidence in the “War Against Bad Men Of Unspecified Religious Origin Who Like to Plot The Death of Westerners” effort has plummeted.
We will rue the day we go back to the September 10th-Clintonian mindset.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
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What are they planning to call it, then? “Post-America Tea Party”?
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — March 31, 2009 @ 9:17 am - March 31, 2009
Speaking of terrorism, the Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on the Pakistani police academy.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,511740,00.html
The Taliban’s Pakistani commander also stated, “Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world.”
But not to worry. Ugly incidents like this will be a thing of the past just as soon as Obama implements his plan to negotiate with the Taliban’s “moderate elements.”
Comment by Sean A — March 31, 2009 @ 10:39 am - March 31, 2009
The Global War on Prosperity has taken its place.
Comment by heliotrope — March 31, 2009 @ 11:16 am - March 31, 2009
Ostrich. Head. Sand.
Repeat as necessary.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — March 31, 2009 @ 11:59 am - March 31, 2009
‘We will rue the day we go back to the September 10th-Clintonian mindset’
Clinton wasn’t perfect in his response to terror, but after reviewing the literature and analyzing administration and congressional responses to international terrorist attacks (In particular Arlen Spectre’s report on the 1996 Khobar towers bombing), a Clintonian mindset is one acutely aware of the threat of nonstate actors and state sponsored terrorists. Directives like PDD-35 systematized intelligence gathering practises, and there was an attempt to pass anti-terror legislation in 1995, blocked by house republicans and the NRA (one of the plans was to tag gunpowder with chemical tracers, so if a bomb was found/went off, gunpowder would leave forensic information. 2nd ammendments, civil liberties, etc.etc.).
During the Clinton administrations transition to the bush admin, Dick Clarke and Casey Berger gave incredibly focused briefs to high level officials,, including condaleeza rice, on the threat of al quaeda and various potential rollback or containment initiatives. In spite of this iteration of it’s importance, counterterrorism was up for a half billion dollar of cuts in the Bush Admins first budget.
With 9/11 and the iraq war, money that could be characterised as counter-terror related has increased exponentially. And what are it’s results? Bin Laden still at large, a protracted occupation in Iraq that is morally confused at best and outrightly criminal at worst, and a broad impact on the way that populations understand themselves politically.
And the end product that is being offered, democracy for foreign nations, a chance to develop and stabilize cultures and societies, consider this, fron Juan Cole:
In the Iraqi elections, Shiite fundamentalist parties closely allied with Iran came to power. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the leading party in parliament, was formed by Iraqi expatriates at the behest of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1982 in Tehran. The Islamic Mission (Da’wa) Party is the oldest ideological Shiite party working for an Islamic state. It helped form Hizbullah in Beirut in the early 1980s. It has supplied both prime ministers elected since 2005. Fundamentalist Shiites shaped the constitution, which forbids the civil legislature to pass legislation that contravenes Islamic law. Dissidents have accused the new Iraqi government of being an Iranian puppet.
Are these the fruits of a Bushian mindset? Installing the architects of our enemies organizations in positions of power?
Comment by Scottland — March 31, 2009 @ 12:03 pm - March 31, 2009
argh, it was filtered, but lets see if i can condense what I just wrote
Been reading a lot about clinton anti-terror policy, was pretty coherent, not perfect, but really did understand the nature of the threat. Dick Clarke and Andy Lake big cheeses in counter-terror w/ clinton.
Bush, lots of money in anti terror related things, really given america’s standing in the world a drubbing, and the end product of this outlook, in places like iraq, is (as Juan Cole explains):
In the Iraqi elections, Shiite fundamentalist parties closely allied with Iran came to power. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the leading party in parliament, was formed by Iraqi expatriates at the behest of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1982 in Tehran. The Islamic Mission (Da’wa) Party is the oldest ideological Shiite party working for an Islamic state. It helped form Hizbullah in Beirut in the early 1980s. It has supplied both prime ministers elected since 2005. Fundamentalist Shiites shaped the constitution, which forbids the civil legislature to pass legislation that contravenes Islamic law. Dissidents have accused the new Iraqi government of being an Iranian puppet.
This is the result of bush’s outlook? the architects of our enemies organizations coming to power through the tools of democracy that we’re paying for?
Comment by Scottland — March 31, 2009 @ 12:08 pm - March 31, 2009
“Westerners” is such a ‘divisive’ term, you should instead be using the term ‘pre-conversion muslims of countries which are yet to be converted to the ROP’
Comment by eaglewingz08 — March 31, 2009 @ 1:22 pm - March 31, 2009
Isn’t Westerner a subjective term? After all, eventually everybody’s west of somebody else. But then I blew a Geography test bonus, in 6th grade, by answering the question Where is the Middle East with Out East.
Anyways, I’m sure Chairman Obama would welcome our Islamo-fascist overlords as an opportunity to rescue his downward spiral.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — March 31, 2009 @ 3:31 pm - March 31, 2009
Hey, speaking of terrorism, moral equivalence, etc…. HotAir has video of Christopher Hitchens confronting and Salman Rushdie confronting them on the Bill Maher show:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/03/30/video-the-excruciating-hitchens-confronts-mos-def-about-al-qaeda-clip/
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — March 31, 2009 @ 4:49 pm - March 31, 2009
As a continuation of my comment #2:
The Pakistani Taliban claims responsibility for the violent assault on the Pakistani police academy and promises an attack on Washington that will “amaze everyone in the world.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,511740,00.html
And what does our Secretary of State do on the SAME DAY? Why, extend the olive branch to the savages of course!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090331/ts_nm/us_afghan_conference
There’s no sugar-coating this. Because of this Administration’s policy of appeasing our enemies, many Americans will die.
Comment by Sean A — March 31, 2009 @ 4:50 pm - March 31, 2009
These ‘over motivated, oppressed individuals’ with their acts of ‘manmade disasters’ will result in excessive ‘collateral damage’ while engaging in ‘protected speech’.
Comment by The_Livewire — March 31, 2009 @ 7:35 pm - March 31, 2009
OMG, massive amounts of filter.
Comment by Scottland — March 31, 2009 @ 7:40 pm - March 31, 2009
As Ron Paul has said, one cannot have a war on a theory. There cannot be a war against “terror” anymore than one could have a war against “peace”. You can only conduct a war against an enemy nation.
Comment by George — March 31, 2009 @ 9:01 pm - March 31, 2009
…and, since terrorists are trans-national and move from nation to nation, one can therefore never war on them at all, even if they are warring on us. An approach to terrorism that leaves us defenseless. Crazy Uncle Ron strikes again.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — March 31, 2009 @ 9:24 pm - March 31, 2009
One can go after (but not have a “war on”) “terrorISTS”, but not “terror.” How does one have a war against a tactic?
Comment by George — March 31, 2009 @ 11:08 pm - March 31, 2009
Scottland,
Interesting post. I’ll hit a few points that I either know data on or question.
1) The accounts of ‘we left them detailed plans’ has been refuted by the Bush Admin several times. It’s a ‘he said, she said’ arguement. Where is the paperwork? Maybe down Sandy Burger’s pants?
2) Which budget is that? My understanding of the budget process is that ‘Bush’s first budget’ would have been July/August of 01.
3) bin Laden has bin decomposing for some time. And with 3 successful elections, a rebuilding government, and a functioning police/army I don’t think you see the same Iraq that the rest of us do. DC is more dangerous than parts of Iraq. Should we withdrawl from there?
As to the Iran connection, sources I’ve read, including Michael Yon, seem to indicate that the Iraqi people don’t want the Iranian influence either.
Not to change the topic, but the current administration’s policy of ignoring huamn rights violations and asking Iran to stop blowing up our troops is going to be sooo much better…
Comment by The Livewire — April 1, 2009 @ 7:25 am - April 1, 2009
By invading (under U.N. auspices) and nation-building in a key few of the failed states that harbor the people who practice the tactic, thereby denying safe haven to the people who practice the tactic and enlisting locals in the fight against those people. In other words: exactly what Bush attempted, and partly succeeded in doing, in various countries including Afghanistan and Iraq.
I’ll give you the following: “The War on Terror” is indeed a poor name for the war. It doesn’t name the real enemy, or the real nature of the war. The real enemy is Islamo-fascism, or more broadly, Islamist expansionism: Islam’s need to conquer the world. And the war is defensive on our part: modern Islamo-fascists have been at it for over 3 decades, and Islam has been at it (world conquest) for 14 centuries, and is unique in being a religion born in events of killing and conquest. Which is why they call it a “Religion of Peace”: to hide the truth. But I digress. The point of Bruce’s post, I think, is that even the super-lame name for the War on Terror that we already had (“War on Terror”) is too honest for the Democrats; even the lame fig-leaf of partial honesty that we had, is now being abandoned.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — April 1, 2009 @ 9:48 am - April 1, 2009
I think that, on the issue of honesty, Bush was not being dishonest (in that I think he believed what he was saying), but certainly disengenous about the nature of the ‘war on terror’, in particular the notion that morality in terrorism is a strict ‘with us or against us’ binary.
I cite, as an example, the 1996 Khobar towers bombing referenced in a previous post. A terrorist attack against a target housing US military personell in Saudi Arabia, it was believed to be an attack sponsored by the Iranian regime. Continuous intelligence gathering and assessing by CIA and DIA had located potential weaknesses in security, intelligence operations by Iranian agents. Even with all this data, the Saudi’s refused to press charges against Iran, claiming that all the attackers had been saudi nationals. SA and Iran were in a period of political reconciliation, and the Saudi government did not want to jepoardize that. This did not, of course, stop the USA from working with and providing military and economic support to the Saudi government. We are fighting terrorists, but the ways that governments need to respond to their threat is much more nuanced than a declaration of war would suggest.
Comment by Scottland — April 1, 2009 @ 10:27 am - April 1, 2009
The phrase, The War On Terror may soon be back in vogue as the Taliban laugh in the face of Obama. As each day goes by he validates the criticism from conservatives during the campaign. Bruce´s comment; ¨We will rue the day we go back to the September 10th-Clintonian mindset,¨ could very well be prophetic.
Comment by Roberto — April 1, 2009 @ 1:21 pm - April 1, 2009
#5: I’ll have to tell my boyfriend who was injured in Iraq by a “human caused catastrophe” (aka crazy man with bombs strapped to him) that the building of all of those roads/schools/houses by him and his fellow soldiers was “moreally confused” and all of the donations of generators/food/supplies to the Iraqis were “criminal.”
Shame on him. And shame on George Bush for approving the funding to allow it!!
Comment by Vanessa — April 1, 2009 @ 2:33 pm - April 1, 2009
Vanessa, please understand that my criticism of the war has little, if anything, to do with individual soldiers following orders, and everything to do with an executive response to assessments of threats to our collective security.
I lived with a marine for a year, who was at the battle of Falluja. He was a young father from Alabama, and I was pained at how much he had suffered in combat;shellshocked, sleepless nights from mortar fire, anger and resentment from Iraqis who he genuinely thought he was helping, the lost final moments with his father, who died while he was in combat.
It was morally confused for the American government to ship him to Iraq, on the most manufactured of pretexts (and no matter how you want to present the buildup to war, any war, you cannot deny that there is a historic, systematic approach to the politicization of intelligence by all governments) when he could have been deployed elsewhere,or raising his son. If your boyfriend lost a limb or suffered brain damage in his attack, then I could call it criminal negligence of the US government that it poured such valuable dedicated resources in the wrong place, if I was so inclined. I could call it obscene, even, that the government that your boyfriend and my housemate worked so hard to secure for the iraqi people may well be a puppet for Iranian influence, if you look at the political parties that the Bush Administration have helped install.
Doesn’t the whole thing just seem crazy to you?
Comment by Scottland — April 1, 2009 @ 2:56 pm - April 1, 2009
Dude, it’s like, Filter city here. Population: ME.
FILTERED.
Comment by Scottland — April 1, 2009 @ 2:57 pm - April 1, 2009
too bad the immoral bushco admin didn’t actually nab bin laden when they could have.
Comment by buckeyenutlover — April 1, 2009 @ 5:03 pm - April 1, 2009
and bnl gets enough lithum in him to post!
guess what, bin laden has bin decomposing for a while. We’ve also gone 8 years w/o an attack on our soil. Meanwhile President Obama is offering his hand to the Mulahs who sent explosives and supplies and trainers to kill our troops, wants to reach out to ‘Moderate Taliban’ (they only stone you half to death! they let their women read to the third grade level!) and Sec of State Hillary Clinton tells China we don’t care about Human Rights anymore.
Immoral? Look in the mirror, if you can stand the sight.
Comment by The Livewire — April 2, 2009 @ 11:14 am - April 2, 2009
#19 – And once again, the Nutty Yankee proves that BDS is still alive and well in the Baracula reign.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — April 2, 2009 @ 11:40 am - April 2, 2009