Total Eclipse

The Pentagon has revealed plans for a complete overhaul of US military and strategic thinking from the accute and ineffective War on Terror to a more chronic approach eerily titled The Long War.

The report identifies four priority areas

· Defeating terrorist networks

· Defending the homeland in depth

· Shaping the choices of countries at strategic crossroads

· Preventing hostile states and non-state actors from acquiring or using weapons of mass destruction

To achieve these goals, the Pentagon must become adept at working with interior ministries as well as defence ministries, the report says. It describes this as “a substantial shift in emphasis that demands broader and more flexible legal authorities and cooperative mechanisms … Bringing all the elements of US power to bear to win the long war requires overhauling traditional foreign assistance and export control activities and laws.” [emphasis mine]
The report continues “..It will also seek to ensure that no foreign power can dictate the terms of regional or global security.”

Conspiracy theories aside, this paradigm shift raises many concerns.

I’d be the last person to defend global terrorism, or to suggest that the US does not have full right to defend itself, but there’s something here that crosses these borders. Quite literally.
Transforming US military to some sort of covert global surge force, able to secure American interests and dictate local policies goes a stretch beyond what one would believe is necessary to secure “peace”.

It appears that since the US has failed to secure global co-operation of other soverign nations’ free accord in it’s War on Terrorism, it will simply indoctrinate it via clandestine means throughout the coming decades in it’s Long War.

But why are they doing this? Do they honestly think they can ‘win’? What would victory here mean anyway?

As we have encountered on sadly too-numerous occasions here in Israel, it appears to be impossible to stop a “single man with an idea” while maintaining a liberal democracy.
You can’t blame us for not trying though. We’ve been pushing the boundaries quite a bit on what it means to be a “liberal democracy”.

Yes, obviously, better intelligence and better co-operation with our neighbours would help thwart terrorist infrastructure. Without a strong financial backbone, the capacity (and possibly, motivation) to perform complex terrorist operations would decline dramatically, I believe,
though it would still exist.

Financial backbone does not appear to be the sole target here. Ideological backbone is just as important a motivational factor, and it seems the Pentagon has, unofficially, placed a target on that as well. The derailed “Clash of Civilizations”, if you will.

If we place this doctrine under the microscope, what it appears to mean, is that unamerican thinking has become a target.

The only way to precise such control would be to precise complete control.

So, we are left with two Orwellian alternatives. Either the Pentagon does not honestly believe victory is possible, and is cynically charging up for an endless war designed to perpetuate itself ; Or, it truly does intend to win, by placing the whole world under the all-seeing-eye and all-powerful influence of Big Brother.

As it may have occurred to you, as it did Orwell, these aren’t, in fact, conflicting alternatives at all.
…And the conspiracy theory prevails…
Make way for the New American Century.

Addendum: You should all read this. As in everything else, it’s all about Brand-Building. Al-Qaeda as Emmanuel Goldstein?

Tagged as 1984, pax americana, Terrorism, the long war, war on terror + Categorized as Current Events, Futurism, Social Politics