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2 DISPATCHES FROM
AMERICA Nine war words that define our
world By Tom Engelhardt
Now that Washington has at least six wars
cooking (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya,
Yemen, and more generally, the global "war on
terror"), Americans find themselves in a new world
of war. If, however, you haven't joined the
all-volunteer military, any of our 17 intelligence
outfits, the Pentagon, the weapons companies and
hire-a-gun corporations associated with it, or
some other part of the National Security Complex,
America's distant wars go on largely without you
(at least until the bills come due).
War
has a way of turning almost anything upside down,
including language. But with lost jobs, foreclosed
homes, crumbling infrastructure, and weird
weather, who even notices? This
undoubtedly means that you're
using a set of antediluvian war words or
definitions from your father's day. It's time to
catch up.
So here's the latest word in war
words: what's in, what's out, what's inside out.
What follows are nine common terms associated with
our present wars that probably don't mean what you
think they mean. Since you live in a
twenty-first-century war state, you might consider
making them your own.
Victory:
Like defeat, it's a "loaded" word and
rather than define it, Americans should simply
avoid it.
In his last press conference
before retirement, Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates was asked whether the US was "winning in
Afghanistan". He replied, "I have learned a few
things in four and a half years, and one of them
is to try and stay away from loaded words like
'winning' and 'losing'. What I will say is that I
believe we are being successful in implementing
the president's strategy, and I believe that our
military operations are being successful in
denying the Taliban control of populated areas,
degrading their capabilities, and improving the
capabilities of the Afghan national security
forces."
In 2005, George W Bush, whom
Gates also served, used the word "victory" 15
times in a single speech ("National Strategy for
Victory in Iraq"). Keep in mind, though, that our
previous president learned about war in the movie
theaters of his childhood where the marines always
advanced and Americans actually won. Think of his
victory obsession as the equivalent of a
mid-20th-century hangover.
In 2011,
despite the complaints of a few leftover neo-cons
dreaming of past glory, you can search Washington
high and low for "victory". You won't find it.
It's the verbal equivalent of a Yeti. Being
"successful in implementing the president's
strategy", what more could you ask? Keeping the
enemy on his "back foot": hey, at $10 billion a
month, if that isn't "success," tell me what is?
Admittedly, the assassination of Osama bin
Laden was treated as if it were VJ Day ending
World War II, but actually win a war? Don't make
Secretary of Defense Gates laugh!
Maybe,
if everything comes up roses, in some year soon
we'll be celebrating DE (Degrade the Enemy) Day.
Enemy: Any super-evil
pipsqueak on whose back you can raise at least
$1.2 trillion a year for the National Security
Complex.
"I actually consider al-Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula with al-Awlaki as a leader
within that organization probably the most
significant risk to the US homeland." So said
Michael Leiter, presidential adviser and the
director of the National Counter-terrorism Center,
last February, months before Bin Laden was killed
(and Leiter himself resigned).
Since Bin
Laden's death, Leiter's assessment has been
heartily seconded in word and deed in Washington.
For example, New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti
recently wrote: "Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen is
believed by the CIA to pose the greatest immediate
threat to the United States, more so than even
al-Qaeda's senior leadership believed to be hiding
in Pakistan."
Now, here's the odd thing.
Once upon a time, statements like these might have
been tantamount to announcements of victory:
That's all they've got left?
Once upon a
time, if you asked an American who was the most
dangerous man on the planet, you might have been
told Adolf Hitler, or Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong.
These days, don't think enemy at all; think
comic-book-style arch-villain Lex Luthor or Doctor
Doom - anyone, in fact, capable of standing in for
globe-encompassing evil.
Right now,
post-Bin Laden, America's super-villain of choice
is Anwar al-Awlaki, an enemy with seemingly near
superhuman powers to disturb Washington, but no
army, no state, and no significant finances. The
US-born "radical cleric" lives as a semi-fugitive
in Yemen, a poverty-stricken land of which, until
recently, few Americans had heard.
Al-Awlaki is considered at least partially
responsible for two high-profile plots against the
US: the underwear bomber and package bombs sent by
plane to Chicago synagogues. Both failed dismally,
even though neither Superman nor the Fantastic
Four rushed to the rescue.
As an Evil One,
al-Awlaki is a voodoo enemy, a YouTube warrior
("the Bin Laden of the Internet") with little but
his wits and whatever superpowers he can muster to
help him. He was reputedly responsible for helping
to poison the mind of army psychiatrist Major
Nidal Hasan before he blew away 13 people at Fort
Hood, Texas.
There's no question of one
thing: he's gotten inside Washington's
war-on-terror head in a big way. As a result, the
Barack Obama administration is significantly
intensifying its war against him and the ragtag
crew of tribesmen he hangs out with who go by the
name of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Covert War: It used to mean
secret war, a war "in the shadows" and so beyond
the public's gaze. Now, it means a conflict in the
full glare of publicity that everybody knows
about, but no one can do anything about. Think: in
the news, but off the books.
Go figure:
today, our "covert" wars are front-page news. The
top-secret operation to assassinate Osama bin
Laden garnered an unprecedented 69% of the US
media "newshole" the week after it happened, and
90% of cable TV coverage. And America's most
secretive covert warriors, elite SEAL Team 6,
caused "SEAL-mania" to break out nationwide.
Moreover, no minor drone strike in the
"covert" CIA-run air war in the Pakistani tribal
borderlands goes unreported. In fact, as with
Yemen today, future plans for the launching or
intensification of Pakistani-style covert wars are
now openly discussed, debated, and praised in
Washington, as well as widely reported on. At one
point, CIA Director Leon Panetta even bragged
that, when it came to al-Qaeda, the Agency's
covert air war in Pakistan was "the only game in
town."
Think of covert war today as the
equivalent of a heat-seeking missile aimed
directly at that mainstream media newshole. The
"shadows" that once covered whole operations now
only cover accountability for them.
Permanent bases: In the
American way of war, military bases built on
foreign soil are the equivalent of heroin. The
Pentagon can't help building them and can't live
without them, but "permanent bases" don't exist,
not for Americans. Never.
That's simple
enough, but let me be absolutely clear anyway:
Americans may have at least 865 bases around the
world (not including those in war zones), but we
have no desire to occupy other countries. And
wherever we garrison (and where aren't we
garrisoning?), we don't want to stay, not
permanently anyway.
In the grand scheme of
things, for a planet more than four billion years
old, our 90 bases in Japan, a mere 60-odd years in
existence, or our 227 bases in Germany, some also
around for 60-odd years, or those in Korea, 50-odd
years, count as little. Moreover, we have it on
good word that permanent bases are un-American.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said as much
in 2003 when the first of the Pentagon's planned
Iraqi mega-bases were already on the drawing
boards. Hillary Clinton said so again just the
other day, about Afghanistan, and an anonymous
American official added for clarification: "There
are US troops in various countries for some
considerable lengths of time which are not there
permanently." Korea anyone? So get it straight,
Americans don't want permanent bases. Period.
And that's amazing when you think about
it, since globally Americans are constantly
building and upgrading military bases. The
Pentagon is hooked. In Afghanistan, it's gone
totally wild - more than 400 of them and still
building! Not only that, Washington is now deep
into negotiations with the Afghan government to
transform some of them into "joint bases" and stay
on them if not until hell freezes over, then at
least until Afghan soldiers can be whipped into an
American-style army. Latest best guesstimate for
that? 2017 without even getting
close.
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