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Washington gets explicit: its 'war on terror' is permanent
The Guardian ^ | May 17, 2013 | Glenn Greenwald

Posted on 05/17/2013 11:03:03 PM PDT by Altariel

Senior Obama officials tell the US Senate: the 'war', in limitless form, will continue for 'at least' another decade - or two

Last October, senior Obama officials anonymously unveiled to the Washington Post their newly minted "disposition matrix", a complex computer system that will be used to determine how a terrorist suspect will be "disposed of": indefinite detention, prosecution in a real court, assassination-by-CIA-drones, etc. Their rationale for why this was needed now, a full 12 years after the 9/11 attack:

Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaida continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight. . . . That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism."

On Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on whether the statutory basis for this "war" - the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) - should be revised (meaning: expanded). This is how Wired's Spencer Ackerman (soon to be the Guardian US's national security editor) described the most significant exchange:

"Asked at a Senate hearing today how long the war on terrorism will last, Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, answered, 'At least 10 to 20 years.' . . . A spokeswoman, Army Col. Anne Edgecomb, clarified that Sheehan meant the conflict is likely to last 10 to 20 more years from today - atop the 12 years that the conflict has already lasted. Welcome to America's Thirty Years War."

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Russia; United Kingdom; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: gwot; iran; kineticaction; russia; unitedkingdom; waronterror; washington; workplaceviolence; wot
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To: arthurus

“we have always been at war with Eastasia”


The phrase noted is from the book 1984 by George Orwell.

It is a mythical country that the war always was being fought and we were always winning even though it had been going on forever.

East Asia that you mention is confusing the passage with an actual geographical location....not the one written about in the year 1946.


21 posted on 05/20/2013 4:30:20 AM PDT by DH (Once the tainted finger of government touches anything the rot begins)
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To: Altariel

If it began in 1993, it has been ongoing for 20 years.

The legacy war on terror warriors get no support from above but can’t be fired


22 posted on 05/20/2013 4:40:56 AM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 .....History is a process, not an event)
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