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Commentary Too - Aug 25, 2005 - Printable Version
- Winning the War on Terror
by Mike Bohling
President Bush’s War on Global Terrorism. I would like you all to think about that one single sentence as you read this article. If you disagree about placing the historic reference to this war in Mr. Bush’s lap, try this one.
America’s War on Global Terrorism.
How does that sound? America’s War on Global Terrorism. That has a much better ring to it. It kind of puts us all into bed together, as one nation. One people united in defeating the scourge of worldwide terrorism. Now that we find ourselves engaged in this war, let’s give a little thought as to how it might end, and how to go about being on the winning side of things when it’s all said and done. Will there be one final, epic battle against the terrorists in which America is victorious? A Waterloo, or Custer’s Last Stand type of moment with one clear winner? Maybe a Hiroshima ending in which the terrorists unconditionally surrender? Given nature of terrorism, these scenarios seem very unlikely. I doubt that the multitude of terrorists factions around the world will be willing to forget their differences, get together and decide join forces to battle the U.S. in open warfare, although it would be extremely convenient for us if they would. If they would just pick a time and a place for a showdown, then we could get this thing settled once and for all.
Terrorists, by definition, fight an entirely different type of war. Acts of terrorism are not perpetrated by soldiers, they are carried out by individuals, or groups of individuals, who have no other recourse but to lash out at the nations that they perceive as their oppressors with whatever tools they have available. They strap bombs on their backs, walk into areas crowded with people, and strike a blow for the cause. Car bombs, snipers, hijacked airplanes, it makes no difference how the terrorist act is accomplished, as long as it has the desired effect. There are no rules of warfare, no governments to be held accountable, and no moral standards to be upheld.
Now we find ourselves, as Americans, waging war against an army of individuals that have no common country, government, or ethical measure to which they can be held accountable. Their numbers increase exponentially as we drop smart bombs, and roll tanks over the very people that the terrorists fight to liberate from oppression, further fueling the fire of hatred that burns for us and what we stand for. Whether the U.S. is seen as a liberator, freeing the people from oppressive Fundamentalists, or the Fundamentalists are seen as Freedom Fighters liberating the people from an occupying force, the reason for the conflict is irrelevant. This article is meant only to bring about discussion as to how to end it.
The fact is that we are currently fighting a war under terms in which we cannot possibly win, our enemies know it, and they are emboldened by it. Since the beginning of America’s War on Global Terrorism, the number of terrorists in has increased, as have the bombings and casualties, and not just in Iraq. The increase of terrorist activities has increased worldwide, and despite what our leaders tell us, there is no end in sight. If we continue on this course, we will lose this fight. You can win a war against an opposing country or government, but you can’t win a war against an enemy that has no boundaries, no limits, no leader to concede defeat, or an enemy army that gains 10 new recruits for every casualty inflicted. At least not by using conventional methods and abiding by any type of moral code or rules of warfare.
So, how do we win? From my perspective, we have only a few options. Being the only remaining Superpower on the planet, it’s highly unlikely that we’re going to surrender to the terrorists, and since we are at war with an anonymous enemy that is not obligated to any nation or definitive leader, it’s not possible for them to surrender to us. That considerably narrows our choices.
President Bush says that we should “Stay the Course”, but the majority of the U.S. citizens disagree, and believe that the President is out of touch with reality. My opinion of our President’s strategy is that his plan is much like shooting at beehive with a Howitzer; the only thing you accomplish is to aggravate the bees. If we continue in this direction, we will have created enough angry bees swarming around that each and every one of us is going to get stung, repeatedly.
Another option is to bring the fight down to the terrorists level by discreetly abandoning all laws, rules, and morals, and fighting them with their own methods. Use torture to obtain confessions and information. Curtail the rights of our own citizens in order to “protect” them, and vehemently attack and discredit anyone that disagrees with the effort. There are many other facets to winning America’s War on Global Terrorism using this formula, such as controlling the media and replacing our Democracy with a Theocracy, but in order to win the war in this manner, we’ll have to pull out all of the stops. We must immediately recall all of our Armed Services Personnel and secretly fight this war with faceless, nameless “Crusaders” that cannot be affiliated with our government in any way. We can then infiltrate enemy ranks, inside and outside of our own borders, and use our martyrs to blow them all to hell, and we could hire unnamed snipers to carry out public assassinations, and opposition leaders and public dissenters will mysteriously disappear never to be seen again, and the enemy will bend to our will or die in the eternal flames of our wrath, and we could do away with those risky elections and have our spiritual leaders declare a King……. YES……. A KING………. AND WORLD DOMINATION CAN BE OURS AT LAST…… AND…….. AND…………..
Wait a minute….
That won’t work. This is America… Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, and that’s exactly what we’re fighting against. We’re talking about winning America’s War on Global Terrorism, not creating an Empire.
Ok, so now that we’ve eliminated both the Bush plan and the Neocon agenda, lets move on to our remaining options. Options that may still be within our grasp. The first is to be completely truthful with ourselves about our intentions, and admit that our only interest in the Middle East is the fact that they have our oil buried underneath their desert, and that we mean to take it. Once that is all out in the open, we can concentrate our full attention to obtaining our goals. With the full support of all Americans, we must be willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of young American lives, kill untold numbers of Arabics and Muslims, and spend trillions of dollars to pursue our plot to control the flow of oil from the Middle East. To be consistent in our newfound honesty, we’ll have to abandon all of this Terrorist Threat, WMD, The World’s a Better Place Without Saddam, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Spreading Democracy bullshit, and clearly lay our objectives out on the table. There may be a small problem in convincing the American Public that killing a billion people in order to steal their oil is a noble thing to do, but when we choose to abandon our morals and go with greed, we owe it to ourselves to at least be straightforward with the people about why we’re doing it. If all of America would get on board the same train, and we gave it everything we’ve got, we have the will, the resources, and the military might to do anything we want. Going about it with this current half-hearted approach of lies and dishonesty is only confusing the issue and making the job more difficult than it has to be.
With all of that said, “America’s War on Global Terrorism”, really isn’t a very suitable term for our ambitions, so we’ll also have to come up with a new slogan.
There is one last remaining option in our arsenal that we can use to come out of this conflict and still be able to claim victory, and that is to attempt to diffuse the situation. I know that it sounds far fetched, but there is a small chance that Bush and the Neocons, the Terrorists, and the Oil Producing Nations, might be able to agree that there’s a peaceable way to resolve our differences. The simplest way to end the conflict is for the U.S to reduce or eliminate its need for foreign oil. By conservative estimates, the long-term cost of the war in Iraq will be 1.3 Trillion dollars if American military presence continues for another 5 years. That amounts to $11,300 for every household in the United States. If you combine that $11,300 with the giveaways and subsidies given to oil companies in the recently passed Energy Bill, and we (the taxpayers) could put a brand new Toyota Prius Hybrid car in every garage in America, eliminating our dependence on foreign oil altogether. While it’s true that if we sat down and negotiated peace with our enemies and reduced our need for foreign oil, parties from all sides of the table would still have to make concessions. Everybody might not get everything that they want, and there may be some hard feelings, but it would still be a hell of a lot easier than trying to come up with a new slogan that doesn’t make us sound like Crusading Imperialist Warmongers.
It’s a long shot, but it just might be worth a try.
The Trillion-Dollar War, By Linda Bilmes
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/082105D.shtml
Hybrid Cars
http://www.hybridcars.com/oil.html
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