George Orwell. 1984
When I read George Orwell’s 1984 back in high school, I wasn’t troubled so much by the idea of Big Brother watching everything. Now we have TIVO that watches what you watch and Homeland Security can tap anyone’s phone and nobody seems concerned. No, what made Orwell’s vision of the future seem unlikely to me then was the notion of an endless war with a shifting identity of “the enemy,” sometimes one, sometimes another. Americans would never fall for that, I figured.
Well, I was wrong, wasn’t I? Who is our enemy? Who are our citizen-soldiers fighting in Iraq? The Ba'athists? They're just a ring around the tub. The Sunnis? No, they’re our allies now. The Shi’ia? No, they’re the Iraqi government, which we support. Muqtada al Sadr? Sometimes we’re allies; sometimes enemies. Bush has it confused. McCain is confused. So it’s no surprise that the people are confused.
Scott McClellan’s admission today that he participated in a grand smokescreen in the run-up to the war only confirms that we are deep into 1984-land.
For an analysis of where this all leads, there is this from the LA Times:
The 'Long War' fallacyRead the whole column at www.latimes.com/news/opinion/ la-oe-bacevich13-2008may13,0,7251551.story
Andrew J. Bacevich May 15, 2008
Donald Rumsfeld is today a discredited and widely reviled figure. Robert Gates, Rumsfeld's successor as defense secretary, is generally admired for manifesting qualities that Rumsfeld lacked -- a willingness to listen not least among them. Yet on one crucial point, the two see eye to eye: Both believe that the United States has no alternative but to wage a global war likely to last decades.
In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, Rumsfeld wasted no time in telling Americans what to expect. "Forget about 'exit strategies,' " he said on Sept. 28, 2001, "we're looking at a sustained engagement that carries no deadlines." Speaking at West Point last month, Gates echoed his predecessor's assessment: "There are no exit strategies," he announced. Instead, Gates described a "generational campaign" entailing "many years of persistent, engaged combat all around the world."
For the U.S., the prospect of permanent war now beckons.
Well into the first decade of this generational struggle, Americans remained oddly confused about its purpose. Is the aim to ensure access to cheap and abundant oil? Spread democracy? Avert nuclear proliferation? Perpetuate the American empire? Preserve the American way of life? From the outset, the enterprise that Gates now calls the "Long War" has been about all of these things and more.
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