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"Now that efforts by the US military against al-Qaida are in their 12th year, we must also ask ourselves: How will this conflict end? . . . . 'War' must be regarded as a finite, extraordinary and unnatural state of affairs. We must not accept the current conflict, and all that it entails, as the 'new normal.' Peace must be regarded as the norm toward which the human race continually strives.
On Thursday night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow interviewed Johnson, and before doing so, she opined as follows:
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When does this thing we are in now end? And if it does not have an end — and I'm not speaking as a lawyer here, I am just speaking as a citizen who feels morally accountable for my country's actions — if it does not have an end, then morally speaking it does not seem like it is a war.
There's no question that this "war" will continue indefinitely. There is no question that US actions are the cause of that, the gasoline that fuels the fire. The only question - and it's becoming less of a question for me all the time - is whether this endless war is the intended result of US actions or just an unwanted miscalculation.
It's increasingly hard to make the case that it's the latter. The US has long known, and its own studies have emphatically concluded, that "terrorism" is motivated not by a "hatred of our freedoms" but by US policy and aggression in the Muslim world. This causal connection is not news to the US government. Despite this - or, more accurately, because of it - they continue with these policies
http://www.guardian....endless-johnson
Reading the full article reminded me of this from 1984
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George Orwell -
- The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact
- The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact
War: the new normal
Edited by jugoso, 12 January 2013 - 08:49 PM.
), since with the Berlin Wall coming down he could see that the Them who had been a satisfactory menace for 40 years would soon not be so. And that is probably why he didn't finish the job against Saddam the first time round, so he'd have a suitable menace in reserve for when he needed one. And also, I suspect, that may have been why George B (Jr.) didn't Get Public Enemy #1, old Bin L, since surely he must have been aware of where he was; it didn't take Mr. O long to find out, did it. Since the trouble is, of course, that if you take out PE #1, then either you've still got to insist that the Global Terror Network is as much of a danger as it ever was (so, perhaps, taking out #1 didn't make all that much difference), or you have to look for some new Enemy. So obviously it's in their interests to keep the good fight going, isn't it. And that's probably why they've been so keen to promote Iran as the new Menace, since perhaps they're realising that more and more people are beginning to get skeptical about the Global Terror Network.
I just believe that the choice isn't as simple as war by conspiracy or power/money politics. I think it IS a true ideological struggle that will take many years to sort - if it ever can be sorted.
