How will the War on Terror be remembered ?

Discussion in 'History' started by Challenger78, Aug 2, 2008.

  1. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    Will it be remembered as a failed, neo con strategy ?
    Or will it be remembered gloriously as a sucess against the West's enemies ?

    Right now, In Australia, Future textbooks might not look on it so favourably.

    Although History is about questioning interpretations of the past.
     
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  3. superstring01 Moderator

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    It's hardly a "neocon" strategy. It has received substantial bipartisan support. What that says for Democrats, I don't quite know, but they put their signature on the whole affair many times.

    ~String
     
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  5. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Much money was spent, many people were angered, many security jobs were made up, much money was wasted, long delays, inconviences everywhere you travel, money was wasted, no other terrorsit was caught in America, no other "incidents" of blowing things up were reported, to much money was spent.

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  7. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    As the downfall of the United States.

     
  8. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    "As the downfall of the United States."

    Possibly. Certainly, as an oxymoron and folly.
     
  9. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    It is going to be remembered by its correct name: struggle for empire...
     
  10. DiamondHearts Registered Senior Member

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    The biggest mistake in history.
     
  11. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Oh I think you underestimate the depths to which people can sink. I think the biggest mistake is yet to be.
     
  12. mathman Valued Senior Member

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    The real problem in the above replies is the failure to distinguish between the war on terror (Afghanistan and Al Qaeda) and the Bush vendetta against Iraq. The first was and is absolutely necessary. The second was and is a horrible blunder leading to many casualties and also making the first war much worse. The Iraq war diverted much needed resources from Afghanistan and also served as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda.
     
  13. DiamondHearts Registered Senior Member

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    The people being killed in Afghanistan have as little do with Al Qaeda than those being killed in Iraq. This line of logic will only increase civilian suffering and breed hostility from the populace.

    The use of diplomacy and end of violence is the only solution, unless of course America wants another Vietnam.
     
  14. River Ape Valued Senior Member

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    I think perhaps it will be remembered as the last war fought primarily by human beings. The robotic weapons being quietly developed at a score of locations in the US will be used to fight future wars.
     
  15. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    Maybe, If given enough power, the starting point for a world dictatorship ?
     
  16. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    It will be remembered as an empty label, designed to spread fear and keep the American people down and in support the warmongers in office.
     
  17. draqon Banned Banned

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    war on terror will be remembered by 911 even constantly repeated over and over and over and over again and maybe on one line will mention millions of dead and killed Iraqis and Afghan people from the US invasion as result of 911...but than 911 and WMD's will be reminded again and again and a long list of bombings all over the world will be made for us to see.
     
  18. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    I suspect the War on Terror will be viewed as "not really a war" at all, but more akin to the Cold War: a coordinated global action by the America and her allies against groups which posed a potential threat to her. Likely it will be viewed with its complexities intact, such as the fact that in many ways (despite the rhetoric) it is an action against what would ordinarily be viewed as "crimes, save that the perpetrators can be viewed (and in many respects have to be viewed) as stateless assailants, akin to evil "non-governmental organizations."

    The War in Afghanistan is certainly a military conflict, but it will likely be viewed as an exception, like the Vietnam War or Soviet Afghan War). The War in Iraq may or may not be viewed as a part of the War on Terror, given their lack of connections to 9/11 and the non-threat they posed to the United States and Europe (though they did pose a threat to Israel and had connections to terrorism there after the fact, so who knows?)

    It is tough to guess how Guantanamo will be viewed. For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, my impression is that the treatment received there is aggressive but not proven to be inhumane. Granted that the wailing and gnashing of teeth is justified, as in a free society we *should* be extra wary of a prison maintained by the federal government specifically because, while there, they feel they are free from the "checks and balances" otherwise built into our system.

    If forced, I would assume that the initial scholarship would be negative, and then when the next conservative waive crashes over the community of historians, that view will be flipped around and refuted, with both sides eventually giving way to a more balanced position between the two.

    Overall, I hope they view the War on Terror as a success, though it's too early to call it for either side. At present, I think Terror is losing pretty badly.
     
  19. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    I think it'll be viewed as a giant farce, except the casualties won't be laughing.
     
  20. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    It's a neocon strategy - its roots in the PNAC - regardless of who also supports it.
    Gitmo was the first of the US torture prisons to be acknowledged officially. Its historical legacy will depend on the political direction taken by the sliding US empire - the beginning and indicative feature of the new US system of government, or an informative symptom of the kind of chaos that the US suffered through at the turn of the century.

    "Aggressive" is a euphemism, and the sophisticated brutality of the treatment received by some at least of its captives is not in serious question. When people are chained naked in a painful position to a cement floor, subjected to temperature extremes and severe noise, maintained thus for many hours in their own urine and feces, and observed the next morning to have pulled out their own hair by hand over the course of the night, they have been treated inhumanely. When the facilities and policies and procedures for doing things like that to people are built at large scale in cement under government contract and issued in official policy and inculcated in formal training, only deliberate denial can avoid the recognition of what that is.

    Eyewitness FBI report.

    The people with the best track record at calling events over the past twenty years in the US all seem to feel that the US "War On Terror" is most likely to end up as a repressed event in some Chinese history book.
     
  21. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    So invading Afghanistan to destroy al Qaeda was a neoconservative strategy? If so, it was a wise neoconservative strategy. I myself am not a neoconsevative, but that they may have thought of something first is not an argument against it. Hitler loved dogs. That Hitler loved dogs is not an argument (well, not a "valid" argument) against anyone who assets that it's okay to love dogs.

    "Torture" is a dysphemism. It's arguably applicable, but just as arguably not. It's not a well defined term and while there is a black and white side to it, there is gray in the middle, and the boundaries of that gray area are entirely subjective. Let's take the definition used in the UN Convention against Torture, as an example (since that one is binding on the U.S.) and let's consider water boarding, which strikes me as the worst of what I've heard being done.

    Water boarding, though incredibly unpleasant, threatens neither life nor limb nor does it inflict serious physical pain as I understand the term. It is clear that the Convention's definition of "torture" includes psychological suffering if that suffering is "serious," a term the Convention never bothers to clarify.

    The U.S. did take a shot at clarifying it when it ratified the convention by noting its understanding that only "prolonged" mental pain counted for purposes of the definition *if* it arises as a result of the threat to inflict physical pain.

    Water boarding, again, doesn't do that. The sensation is unpleasant, but not physically painful in common sense of the term.

    One could argue the other way, but one would be wrong to assert that there is only one valid answer to the question "is water boarding torture?"

    Is water boarding something civilized nations should avoid using? Yes, I believe it is. Is it an effective interrogation technique? I don't know and am inclined to say that it isn't. Is it "torture?" It's debatable, and the U.S. reservation to the Convention Against Torture seems almost like it was specifically geared towards clarifying that water boarding isn't covered.

    A similar analysis goes for chaining someone to a floor. The question is not one of pain, it has to be severe pain to be "torture" as the term is defined in international law. The severity in the case of actual pain can be defined in terms of magnitude or duration, presumably, but forcing a prisoner to walk several miles, do hard labor all day under a hot Sun, and then march several miles back--all while chained to a crew of other prisoners--is *not* torture...yet making them sit chained subject to temperatures variations is? It seems to me that at some point people are drawing fine lines and pretending they are canyons.

    You may not like the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, I may not like it, and that is absolutely fine. The logical fix is to say that those things are wrong and use moral persuasion and/or practical considerations to change behavior. Merely asserting that a thing is illegal and wrong, does not render it illegal and wrong, no matter how many times one repeats the mantra. There are mechanisms for enforcing international treaties...by other parties to those treaties, and that is not being pursued very fervently.

    Instead the international left is content to simply, (i) self-servingly assert its supposed moral and intellectual superiority, (ii) assert without resort to the mechanisms of the law that these acts are illegal and (iii) sit back in stunned, abject disbelief that their bootless diatribes have not caused anyone to change their behavior in any way (the good news being that they take (iii) as proof of (i)).

    You may well be proven right by history. As I said, I don't know how history will see Guantanamo, but I have bad news: despite the arrogance, you don't either.
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2008
  22. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    Really ? I thought it was only the wars that they put their signature on.
     
  23. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    And the PATRIOT Act and the additional enhanced surveillance, which they only beat their chests about after the fact (and then reauthorized despite the chest-beating).

    There is no debate in the Democratic Party about whether we should be involved in a war on terrorism. Obama threatened to invade Pakistan last year as part of his vision of what the War on Terror should be. The electronic surveillance bill passed last month despite criticism of its immunity from lawsuits for cooperating telecom companies.

    People are very concerned about eroding civil liberties, but they are also very concerned about people potentially dying in terrorist attacks. Neither issue is a simple "left or right" split. The War on Terror is a broad label that denotes the entire U.S.-led effort to curb the latter (and it has to be noted that part of the strategy employed has been to show less deference to civil liberties than we are used to in conducting investigations). So far as I know, non-neoconservatives also care about planes being flown into buildings and general mayhem in the streets, even Democatic non-neoconservatives.

    "Neoconservtives" as I understand the term means those who want the USA to remain the world's only superpower and who favor using its foreign policy might to "export democracy" (in the way that they feel we exported democacy to Japan and Germany post-WWII). They believe that this is consonant with the goals of the War on Terror because westernized democratic nations are less likely to foment the sorts of extremist groups in the same numbers as more oppressive regimes.

    As such, Iraq seems like the neoconservative dream. Afghanistan seems like it has neocon potential, but perhaps we're not focussed enough on it to achieve the neocon agenda there. Domestic and international surveillance seems unrelated to the neoconservative agenda. Guantanamo seems downright counterproductive, since the primary neocon goal is not to defeat terror, but to use American foreign policy clout in ways that spread the ideals of America to other nations. Since Guantanamo reduces American foreign policy clout, generates intelligence that doesn't further the neocon goal, and increases distrust of the U.S. in the sorts of nations to which we want to export our ideals, I am not sure why they'd favor it on neoconservative grounds (though no one is a neoconservative *and nothing else,* so some may well support Guantanamo Bay being used as a prison on other grounds).
     

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