The Neocons' Long War

[pberq]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20060208/the_neocons_long_war.php

The Neocons' Long War
Robert Dreyfuss
February 08, 2006

The Pentagon’s latest Quadrennial Defense Review, the fancy name for the Defense Department’s “big think” strategy that is supposed to come out every four years, has to be seen as the Bush administration’s ultimate Plan for Empire. It lays out a Thirty Years' War-type battle plan for an expanding U.S. military presence worldwide, to fight a war against an enemy which is, at most, a few hundred strong.

Officially, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld calls it “The Long War,” a propaganda term designed to echo “the Cold War,” and the Pentagon intends to brainwash Americans into supporting a generation-long struggle that will lay the groundwork for an American hegemony in the 21st century. It is, indeed, the Project for a New American Century.

According to The New York Times, alongside the QDR, the Pentagon has developed its own (classified) counterterrorism strategy. It is this mission, designed to combat an enemy that the Bush administration describes as equal in magnitude to the threat posed by German Nazism or Soviet communism, which is driving both the QDR and the huge expansion of the budget for the Defense Department and the U.S. intelligence community over the next few years. The QDR is the neoconservatives’ mythical World War IV, in line-item form.

Of course, it ignores the fact that the blunt instrument of the U.S. military is precisely the wrong tool to use against radical right Islamist forces. As the war in Iraq has proved to everyone but the most hard-core neoconservative, ham-handed U.S. military attacks in Muslim countries create more terrorists than they kill. The Times , in reporting the Pentagon’s counterterrorism plan, quotes a Defense Department official involved in writing it who points out:

...the American military’s effort to aid tsunami victims in southeast Asia and to assist victims of Pakistan’s earthquake did more to counter terrorist ideology than any attack mission.

(more at link . . .)

[Vincardog]

1. ham-handed military attacks in Muslim countries to cerate more terrorist

is exactly the prescription for the perpetual war the NeoConvicts WANT.
GET it?

The purpose of this "Long War" is to create confusion so they can keep looting our treasury and killing our children. All the while they and theirs live in the lap of luxury and laugh at our struggles.


These evil 'fucks have to be stopped. NOW

[redqueen]

2. *sigh*

"...the American military’s effort to aid tsunami victims in southeast Asia and to assist victims of Pakistan’s earthquake did more to counter terrorist ideology than any attack mission."

Dennis K could have told them that. BEFORE the Iraq war, even. (Well, not specifically about Pakistan, but... the same idea.)

Too bad most people are so busy being idiots.

[glitch]

3. I thought this was going to be about the 40 year war against the US

Constitution, not the permawar they are planning for the world. But I am very glad to see pnac mentioned, Robert Dreyfuss is another must-read writer.

[RufusEarl]

4. 'The Long War,”

Doesn't this just prove that Bu$h has no intention on leaving office in 08? How can Rummy plan a war that last 30 years, when he's going to loose his job in 08.

If president Kerry wins again in 08, does Rummy expect Kerry to pick up were Bu$h left off? And continue with this so called American Empire doctrine, I certainly hope not!

[punpirate]

6. Here's a hint...

... presidents aren't in control of Pentagon budgets, and Kerry would be helpless to change this in `09 (nor would any president elected). Ever since the very early `80s, Pentagon procurement and the defense contractors have employed a strategy they call "front-loading" of the budget--creating a long-term need from planning reviews. That's what this QDR is. Front-loading of the system.

Most of the early years are occupied with producing the planning and threat-identification documents to justify R&D, then the R&D is used to justify the contracts for equipment. Then, after ten years, when the Pentagon has creatively imagined new threats, the contracts are let to modify the equipment being purchased to meet the newly-imagined threats, and when the equipment fails to perform even after modification, the Pentagon says our equipment can't meet impending threats, and planning begins anew for the latest threats, and the process starts over.

In the meantime, the dunderheads in Congress are afraid to ever vote against this nonsense, because of what the Pentagon and contractors call "political engineering," the practice of putting the production of equipment or parts in virtually every Congressional district in the country, so when the rare soul does stand up and object to obscenely large defense budgets, there's a defense contractor somewhere who can say, "oh, dear, budget cuts will mean we'll have to cut jobs in Lower Bumfuck," which just happens to be that Congressperson's district.

Anyone who believes that the President alone has the power to radically alter this system is deluding themselves.

[McKenzie]

7. thanks for some really useful information punpirate

I have always wondered how the big financial interests in the MI complex pull it off. Your post is really illuminating in the context of how the MI system works financially.

Thnx

[punpirate]

9. Try googling...

... the name "Franklin Spinney" or just go here:

http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/def_power_games_98.htm

I think you'll find that interesting. :)

Cheers.

[endarkenment]

5. Can we finally just admit the obvious now?

That, as unthinkable as it is, the PNAC plan required 9/11 as a catalyst and it is too much to ask that coincidentaly 9/11 happened. We have our reichstag fire, we have our tyranny, we have our brutal regime determined to rule the world. The only question left is 'are we good Germans'?

[pberq]

8. Yes, that is the bottom line.

Are we "good Germans" or are we going to stand up to these criminals? And I mean we as a nation.

[Demeter]

10. Hell, I'm Not Even a Good Pollack

100% born and bred, and can't stand the cabbage. Never make it as a German, either.

I'm a damn good American, though, if I do say so myself!

So, what's the blue-book value on a good American, these days?

[endarkenment]

11. Its easy to be a halfway decent Pollack.

1) drink to excess
2) lay large blank canvases on the floor.
3) wait for a halfway sober moment.
4) dribble and splash as needed.