Jonathan Weisman, "G.O.P. Energized Weighs How Far to Take Inquiries," in The New York Times, May 17, 2013, at p. A1.
David E. Sanger, "Chinese Hackers Resume Attacks On U.S. Targets," in The New York Times, May 20, 2013, at p. A1. ("Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?")
Nick Bilton, "Helper Robots Are Steered, Tentatively, to Care For the Aging," in The New York Times, May 20, 2013, at p. B6. ("Not One More Victim" and "A Doll's Aria.")
Nick Wingfield, "Drones Attract Prominent Investors," in The New York Times, May 20, 2013, at p. B7. ("'Oblivion': A Movie Review.")
Charlie Savage, "Debating Legal Basis for a War On Terror," in The New York Times, May 17, 2013, at p. A6.
Mark Landler & Michael D. Shear, "President Sees a Path Forward Beyond Troubles: Wary Over Distraction," in The New York Times, May 18, 2013, at p. A1.
Julie Cresswell, et als., "Jersey Hospital Costliest in the Nation," in The New York Times, May 18, 2013, at p. A1. (Bayonne, New Jersey's hospital provides poor quality health care for the most excessive fees in the nation -- including expensive care for patients, allegedly, AFTER their deaths have taken place, along with costly surgical equipment that cannot be found even though it has been paid for several times. This hospital is located in Hudson County, which is controlled by "Boss Bob" Menendez. It is inconceivable to many Union City residents that Big Bob would not be "dipping his finger" in that messy pie: "New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead" and "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.")
Jonathan Weisman & Jeremy W. Peters, "Republicans Broaden Scope of I.R.S. Inquiry; Hoping to Entangle White House," in The New York Times, May 18, 2013, at p. A12.
Gore Vidal, Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace: How We Got to be So Hated (New York: Nation, 2002), entirety.
"WASHINGTON -- A top Pentagon official said Thursday that the evolving war against Al Qaeda was likely to continue 'at least 10 to 20 years' and urged Congress not to modify the statute that provides its legal basis." (emphasis added!)
A "War Against Terror" -- as Gore Vidal and others warned -- is a struggle against an abstract noun. It is comparable to declaring war against "dandruff."
After America's inconclusive (at best) so-called "wars" against poverty and/or drugs, we should have learned better. There are limits on the utility of this "war" metaphor. The phrase "war on" becomes close to meaningless in some contexts. The Obama Administration's "war" on the free press is one of the wars we should worry about.
The A.U.M.F. legislation that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York only authorized --
" -- war against the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and those who harbor them ... Al Qaeda and the Taliban."
This authorization leaves out, for example, the Haqqani Network in Pakistan, also the Taliban and Al Qaeda operate under other names and with alternative bases of operation in the world. For instance, in partnership with Hamas and, also, Hezbollah.
Like the Gulf of Tomkin resolution that led America into the Vietnam War in earnest, President Bush's "Executive Action" circumvented the Constitutional requirement of a Congressionally declared war any time a substantial military commitment is undertaken, whatever that means. After 10 years, Iraq and Afghanistan seem pretty "substantial."
The attacks on 9/11 were a dream come true for Right-wing and semi-fascist elements within the military and in America's political conversation. These people hoped for an excuse to militarize the culture in order to "control" dissent.
America's "National Security State" is "totalitarianism with a friendly smile," producing the de facto abolition of the Bill of Rights. Judicial cowardice has allowed this loss of Americans' civil liberties to proceed, essentially, without obstruction.
Worse, the influence of non-U.S. players -- like Israeli conservative forces -- have pushed the nation into a wider confrontation than is necessary with the Islamic world.
This confrontation is fueled by sympathetic press interests in New York and Washington, D.C. that are controlled by what the Russians call "oligarchs."
America's corporate media has become jingoistic, xenophobic and nationalistic or war-mongering. We do not see photos of the 100,000 or more wounded veterans and nearly 20,000 killed (in all conflicts) in American media, unlike during the Vietnam War which was brought to you "in living color."
"Lawmakers are considering enacting a new authorization, because the original Qaeda network has been largely decimated, [dispersed?] while the current threat is increasingly seen as arising from terrorist groups in places like Yemen that share Al Qaeda's ideology but have no connection to the 2001 attacks."
A war against ideology is absurd. Ideas cannot be destroyed with drones. You cannot kill an extreme interpretation of Islamic law.
Al Qaeda, far from being destroyed has "shape-shifted" and morphed or resurfaced in different settings by means of new alliances with radical groups sharing their opinions and/or an intense hostility to the United States.
Increased tensions and U.S. actions in Yemen, Bahrain, Pakistan and elsewhere (increasingly, this includes unlikely places like Venezuela) will only complicate the struggle that is much more than military. By some estimates the U.S. is currently involved in 11 military struggles -- "hot" wars -- and also in a long-term ideological competition in the Islamic world that we are losing (our new "cold war").
Heightened tensions and hostility against America will result in more incidents like the Boston bombing, I greatly fear, unless diplomatic efforts supplement military actions. We must bring Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table. Is Camp David available? Or have the Chinese foreclosed on the property?
No absolute military victory is possible in what is now admitted to be, at least partly, a struggle of ideas:
"Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, noted that the 2001 statute said NOTHING about 'associated forces' of Al Qaeda. He said the administration's theory had 'essentially rewritten the Constitution today because it was up to Congress to declare war. I don't disagree that we need to fight terrorism, but we need to do it in a Constitutional way,' he said."
The Republican Congress has declared war against Mr. Obama, not Al Qaeda. ("Is Lindsey Graham An Enemy Combatant?")
Unspecified in all of this political nonsense is the increased costs of new military budgets and the vast sums now being requested for global intelligence wars, like the unsuccessful efforts in Moscow recently that ended in the arrest of a wig-wearing C.I.A. operative. The wig worn by that would-be James Bond has probably cost U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars.
