What Do You Call an Endless War?

[Draggingtree]

The American Conservative: What Do You Call an Endless War?

Let's find an honest name for this conflict we're asked to fight forever.

 

(Via TomDispatch.)

By Andrew Bacevich • May 28, 2013

 

For well over a decade now the United States has been “a nation at war.” Does that war have a name?

 

It did at the outset. After 9/11, George W. Bush’s administration wasted no time in announcing that the U.S. was engaged in a Global War on Terrorism, or GWOT. With few dissenters, the media quickly embraced the term. The GWOT promised to be a gargantuan, transformative enterprise. The conflict begun on 9/11 would define the age. In neoconservative circles, it was known as World War IV.

 

Upon succeeding to the presidency in 2009, however, Barack Obama without fanfare junked Bush’s formulation (as he did again in a speech at the National Defense University last week). Yet if the appellation went away, the conflict itself, shorn of identifying marks, continued.

 

Does it matter that ours has become and remains a nameless war? Very much so.

To specify when a war began and when it ended is to privilege certain explanations of its significance while discrediting others. Let me provide a few illustrations.

[Draggingtree]

Troop Withdrawal: Aid Groups Warn of Afghan Security Vacuum

The looming end of NATO operations in Afghanistan is creating a security vacuum that puts the entire purpose of the international mission at risk. Aid groups may have to scale down their operations, and Berlin is alarmed at US threats of total withdrawal. By SPIEGEL Staff more...

• Photo Gallery: Growing Fear of Afghan Security Vacuum

• http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/aid-groups-warn-of-afghan-security-vacuum-a-913755.html