The end of “perpetual war”?
The New York Times, with it’s own little immature, retarded and stunted worldview, applauds Obama’s speech yesterday as “the most important statement on counterterrorism policy since the 2001 attacks, a momentous turning point in post-9/11 America” because Obama announced that the war against terrorists can’t continue;
While there are some, particularly the more hawkish Congressional Republicans, who say this war should essentially last forever, Mr. Obama told the world that the United States must return to a state in which counterterrorism is handled, as it always was before 2001, primarily by law enforcement and the intelligence agencies. That shift is essential to preserving the democratic system and rule of law for which the United States is fighting, and for repairing its badly damaged global image.
Yeah, the way “counterterrorism” was fought before 2001 resulted in those horrendous attacks that year. And, oh, we had a “badly damaged global image” before 9/11. Electing Obama was supposed to cure that. Our “badly damaged global image” goes back to the early days of the Cold War, and it really doesn’t matter, any-damn-way. Who cares what the third world thinks of us as long as they continue to buy Coca-Cola and McDonalds’ franchises.
There’s no one calling for “perpetual war”, but what good does it do if one side says the war is over and the other continues to fight? That’s what we did in Iraq. the media and the pointy-headed imbeciles told us nightly that when we left Iraq the killing there would end. So tell me how it happened that more than 100 people died in bombings across Iraq on Monday.
Terrorism doesn’t stop just because one side stops fighting. As we withdraw from Afghanistan, the war comes to our shores, like it’s done in the US (Boston), Great Britain (Woolwich) and France (Toulouse) in the last year.
No, we don’t need a perpetual war, we only need one to which we are committed to being victorious without the domestic hand-wringing and moralizing press telling us how to repair our damaged image. And, oh, we need a leader – one who doesn’t weigh his actions with his popularity. Radical Islam has been at war with us since 1979, and I don’t hear them complaining about their own “perpetual war” with us. In fact they’ve done pretty well, since we haven’t even acknowledged that there’s a war going on.
Thanks, New York Times. Don’t you have some military secrets to reveal, or something?
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Media, Terror War
I wouldn’t expect anything less from the official birdcage liner and revealer of secrets.
Timing of this speach is oh so interesting… as is the premise that he will simply demand the war to end, and it shall. Seriously? That is all you have to do? Say it is over? Well why the fuck didn’t you do that several years ago then? Why not once Bin Laden was fed to the fish? Why did he wait so damned long, because what measurable ends have been met to justify his not declaring it over until now?
The Emporer has spoken… so let it be written.
I remember some years ago when now retired CSA GEN Casey said that we were in an “era of persistent conflict,” acknowledging that we were going to be involved in a long, painful conflict. Even though his leadership during his tenure in Iraq was questionable, this particular comment of his was telling and accurate. I find it disconcerting that the current military and civilian leadership cannot see reality for what it is in the world, but rather the reality they want to see.
Jonn, the New York Times is the same paper who called Afghanistan a “quagmire”–exactly four DAYS after the bombing campaign began in October of 2001.
These people wouldn’t know policy if it sat on their faces and wiggled.
Well, we’ve been fighting a limited war (ie. giving habeus corpus to terrorist detainees, winning hearts and minds, Islam is a Religion of Peace, etc).
I already know what the end game for this looks like: we retreat behind static defenses in Fortress America and, after a few years of letting our guard down, we lose an American city to anthrax or a dirty nuke or an actual rogue nuke that can’t be traced back with 100% certainty.
Then, we nuke Mecca and Medina and eradicate Muslims globally. Total war is the only way Islam will ever let this end. We’re stupid to let them prick us death over the course of centuries.
@4 If Policy is a waitress at Hooters I bet they know her quite well….
Jonn, as I have said many times here with our current weak 4ss plan regarding troop withdrawals in Afghanistan we are leaving behind a small force of victims who will be depending on their Afghan trainees for their defense….I see no real positive outcome there either because there is no actual plan for long term stabilization of Afghanistan any more than there was in Iraq. You can’t change a thousand years of culture with an 8-10 year occupation that has no plan for realistic interaction between the three major varieties of tribal culture there. With a similar disinterest in post occupation Afghanistan there’s little incentive for the local population or their Taliban tormentors to take our words seriously.
Right about now Obama will say anything to divert attention from the growing number of scandals permeating his administration like so many termites in a piece of rotted wood….
But, we will always have EastAsia…
Most. Incompetent. Administration. Ever.
The fact that this administration — and their mouthpieces — have decided that the global war on terror “is over” assures us that it will, indeed, be perpetual.
There’s nothing like informing the enemy that they now get to pick the place and set the pace for the next conflict, to make sure this war — and its casualties — continues.
This president, and his supporters, have much to answer for.
At least King Canute knew that the tide wouldn’t stop just because he told it to.
The war isn’t over until WE say it’s over.
This is one of many results of failing to know/understand history. War IS perpetual. There always have been and always will be conflicts between good and evil. Sometimes between good and good; sometimes between evil and evil. But somebody somewhere is always fighting about something.
It doesn’t matter that I don’t like it, that IS the way it is. My wishing things were other than what they are will never make it so. Community organizers can’t either.
Oh, and it’s bad enough when he telegraphs to his union thugs et al what is expected of them. This? He has gone global. Again. There are terrorists around the world today doing their victory dances and independent operators all over this country checking their stashes. They have been given their opords.
@11 Hey Ex-PH2, did you read my post on the 600+ Monkress story from the wee hours of the morning? Just want to make sure we are good brother.
@11 It’s the Phoney SEAL thread.
Why is our global image so important? Who cares
“Radical Islam has been at war with us since 1979”
Islam has been at war with us since 1776, just ask Thomas Jefferson.
This war won’t be over until Islam as it is preached and practiced now is eliminated, along with all its adherents.
A people who blow up their own children with glee cannot be negotiated or reasoned with. They believe whole-heartedly in what the Koran says and it says to subjugate or kill all unbelievers.
Obama has set us back decades, even encouraging the spread of the Islamic evil by assisting with the downfall of Egypt, Libya, and now Syria. A secular dictator can be reasoned with, an Islamist one cannot.
It’s either them or us and the world’s existence is depending on us.
If I can’t win, I’m taking my ball and going home. Then it’s over, right?
P.S. the emperor has no clothes!
I imagine I’ll be labeled a sneering liberal for this, but was the same level of vitriol directed at President Bush when he declared we prevailed in Iraq six weeks after that conflict began? I know, I know.. it’s not apples to apples, but the basic point -that the nature of the conflict needs to begin shifting- seems to be pretty similar.
Anonymous: not vitriol (from me, anyway) – just some reminders that the “Mission Accomplished” speech was selectively quoted and presented by the media, well after the fact, to cast Bush in the worst possible light. Even today, we forget how many in the media actively hated and reviled that man.
(1) The full quote you sort of paraphrase above was as follows: “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.” The speech was given on 1 May 2003. All of that was at the time absolutely, completely true. I later served with some folks who had been in Iraq at about that time (I was on active duty elsewhere at the time vice in Iraq). They told me that in early May 2003 – Iraq was pretty damn quiet. The Iraqis were still pretty much shell-shocked and docile.
In short, “major combat operations in Iraq” had indeed ended; we had “won the battle of Iraq”. Unfortunately, we fornicated up the peacekeeping/rebuilding effort. We had essentially no plan for how to do that, nor did we have sufficient forces on-hand for occupation. Things went south afterwards.
(2) In the same speech, Bush also said “The war on terror is not over; yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their cause is lost. Free nations will press on to victory.”
To me, that’s a fairly clear acknowledgement of additional troubles ahead, coupled with a statement of resolve to see things through.
YMMV.
http://middleeast.about.com/od/usmideastpolicy/a/me080921a.htm
@Sparks, yes, I did. Go see what I said. 🙂
This is ludicrous. The history of the human species is that we have been at war/in conflict with ourselves for thousands of years. We pushed out and overwhelmed the Neandertal, absorbed them into our midst, and moved on to spread all over the planet. We’re the most successful apex predator that Mother Nature ever invented.
There will be no end to war on this planet unless we find other territories to expand to. It’s our nature to do that. We start wars to acquire the water and productive land next door, or overrun people who have resources that we want, when we have none ourselves.
That fool in the White House can insulate himself from bad news all he wants to, but that kind of denial will only make him look as stupid and self-centered as he truly is, especially when the next nasty event happens. The end of perpetual war? Dream on, you dumb-fuck. It will never happen.
“No war is over until the enemy says it’s over. We may think it over, we may declare it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote.”
Gen. James Mattis
#5 Fen,
“Then, we nuke Mecca and Medina and eradicate Muslims globally. Total war is the only way Islam will ever let this end. We’re stupid to let them prick us death over the course of centuries.”
My battle plan was similar. We load, aim and lock four ICBMs onto: a minor mosque (somewhere/anywhere in SEA), a major mosque (in SEA), Mecca, and Medina. No nukes, but enough HE to level the city.
Give fair warning to ALL Muzzies throughout the world to rein it in, or we start launching – one missile for each act of aggression, overt or covert. Don’t care who did it or who started it. Strike one, the minor mosque. Strike two, the major mosque. STRIKE THREE, Mecca AND Medina – YER OUT!!
But then again, that would require LEADERSHIP with stones the size of basketballs that you could hear clanking from three blocks away.
I’m STILL wondering how Prez Obaomao ever managed to father two children? (that is, if they’re actually his) (D’OH! did I actually go there!?) (after all, it’s been shown by every test but DNA that Frank Davis – pornographer and Communist – is Barry’s real father).
Actually, Common Sense, Islam has been at war with the West since Charles “The Hammer” Martel met the Saracens, the Moors of Africa, at Bordeaux and chased them out of France in 732. He saw the invading Moors, then occupying Spain and trying to move further into Gaul (Europe), as a greater danger than the Saxons and acted accordingly.
Even Vlad Tepes of Draculesti, the source of the Dracula mythos, saw Islam as a danger and spared no one in his efforts to push the Ottoman Turks out of Wallachia.
There is no end to war unless WE say it is ended, because WE will have to bear the burden of it all.
Anonymous, Saddam’s military was routed in 6 weeks. Routed. Gone. Eliminated. There’s no doubt about that. He was properly cheered, until the sad-sack liberals fought to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
The problem with Obama’s speech is that there was nothing to declare victory about. His Benghazi debacle shows he is incompetent and a liar when it comes to terrorism.
Becaause of Obama’s incompetence with terrorists, two guys with fireworks and kitchenware killed 3 people, injured hundreds and caused a lockdown a major metropolitan area. Is that where he determined that the war is over?
It’s not vitriol. It’s disgust. Disgust with a self-adoring do-nothing who has faked his way through everything in life.
Add me to the list of hawkish people. This is how I feel about it:
May the gods of war keep our enemies from our doors and our lovers in our beds, and the dogs of war feasting on the bones of our enemies.
The was counter-terrorism was handled before 9/11? Like with the USS Cole, and the first World Trade Center bombing and the bombing of our Kenyan embassy?
‘Cause you know that didn’t work out so hot.
Well, I can only say that Bodaprez can’t be all things to all people. As it is, he’s not much to anyone.
@Ex-PH2. You know your history well. Any place that Islam has become the dominant religion, Christian and Jews and other non-Muslims have have been driven out, persecuted or made “Dhimmi” (second class citizens) I am left wondering if there is any place for Islam in the west where it can peacefully co-exist with others.
@jerry920, I have serious doubts, myself.
“The easiest way to end a war is to lose it.” –George Orwell
Well after a momentary lapse over the DOJ seizing of AP records, the NYT is back in the tank for Obama. Fun while it lasted. Did they say anything important?
Ideally someone needs to remind POTUS of the old saying, “You may no longer be interested in Jihad, but Jihad is still interested in you.”
Mike
Hey, Bozo in the Oval Office. Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, you moron. Do yourself a favor: step aside and go play golf in Hawaii, and let Joey the Drunk Uncle have a go at it.
And take that onion-eyed hagfish Svengali chick with you, since you’ll need someone to tell you which pair of boxer briefs to wear and how to put them on, and everyone knows you don’t even know how to tie your own shoes.
We can do just fine without you, since you don’t do anything but suck up tax dollars and model the latest tie someone bought for you. Just remember, when things go sour because you were, and always have been, asleep at the switch, we’ll still blame it on you because you had more than enough time to stop it and you did nothing about it. It’s just a damn shame that being liked by everyone — well, NOT everyone, more like less than half of everyone — is most important to you than doing your damn job.
Run along now, and be a stranger.
The followers of Muhammad declared war on the rest of the world 1,390 years ago and have waged it continuously through both overt and covert means. That’s close enough to “perpetual war” for me.
I went through the painstaking process of reading (and commenting on most of) the entire speech: http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/ps/2013/05/obama-on-national-defense.html
The tiny portion the NytWyts latched on to is but one of the many of the outrageous claims, or outright lies, or purposeful justifications for bad policies laid out in his over 6000 words.
In the 40th Millennia, there is only war…
Whoops. Thought I was reading a Warhammer 40k novel there for a second.
More clownshoes from the ‘Grey Lady’- don’t know how they stay in business, but I’m sure all their echo chamber lefty pals are applauding the piece.
Er…41st Millennium…that’s what I get for trying to be clever.