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Here's the question that comes to my mind as 2022 begins: If soon after the global war on terror began with no special sources of inside information, nothing I could see perfectly well that it was going to be a disaster, why couldn't the people who mattered? It's not like it was magic or something. It was obvious as hell.
And yet the crew running our government at the time and their neocon backers spoke of the modest terror groups then as part of a developing it's right there in the historical record "World War IV." As it happened, the 19 mostly Saudi al-Qaeda hijackers of 9/11 were anything but World War IViors. They were instead members of a small group that lucked out big-time in a truly murderous fashion. They were, however, not faintly equivalent to America's opponents in World Wars I and II or, for that matter, the Cold War, which (thank god!) never quite became World War III.
That, in other words, was a fantasy of the first order, even if it was supported by a remarkable number of key backers of President George W. Bush and his top officials as they invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq. In doing so, they would, of course, create a war-making debacle, though at the time it was presented as a remarkable tale of all-American triumphalism. As I put it in 2003, thinking about the book I had written in the early 1990s titled The End of Victory Culture, "Given a system that eats itself for breakfast, the second coming of America's victory culture should prove an ephemeral affair. I wouldn't bet that a year from now, no less a decade from now, kids anywhere in America will be playing GIs and Iraqis, or Delta Force and Afghans in their backyards or streets. And maybe we should all thank our lucky stars for that."
Still, that urge to be in World War IV did have its effect, domestically if nowhere else. After all, some two decades-plus after the 9/11 moment, we exist in a country in which the Pentagon and the "defense" industries associated with it are funded in a way that once would have been inconceivable. Meanwhile, we have a second Defense Department called the Department of Homeland Security and a global intelligence and surveillance network unparalleled in its expansiveness. As TomDispatch Managing Editor Nick Turse writes all too accurately today, we now live on a planet in which World War IV proved not just a pathetically losing effort, but a striking ongoing catastrophe. Still, as I read his piece, I couldn't help thinking how painfully predictable it should have been that this country's war on terror would turn into a war for terror. As he reports today, global terror groups have essentially doubled in number since 9/11.
Let me just quote myself one more time and then you can consider Washington's all-too-mad twenty-first century of misplaced aggression with Nick. I wrote the following passage in April 2015 by which time all of this should have been beyond obvious to Americans of every stripe:
"And then, of course, there was our country's endless string of failed wars, interventions, raids, assassination campaigns, and the like; there was, in short, the 'global war on terror' that George W. Bush launched to scour the planet of 'terrorists,' to (as they then liked to say) 'drain the swamp' in 80 countries. It was a 'war' that, with all its excesses, quickly morphed into a recruiting poster for the spread of extremist outfits"
"In the process, the president became first a torturer-in-chief and then an assassin-in-chief and, I'm sorry to tell you, few here even blinked. It's been a nightmare of" hubris and madness, profits and horrors, inflated dreams of glory and the return, as if from an earlier century, of the warrior corporation and for-profit warfare on a staggering scale."
Now, consider with Nick what it all adds up to as 2022 begins. Tom
The War on Terror Is a Success for Terror
Terrorist Groups Have Doubled Since the Passage of the 2001 AUMF
By Nick Turse
It began more than two decades ago. On September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush declared a "war on terror" and told a joint session of Congress (and the American people) that "the course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain." If he meant a 20-year slide to defeat in Afghanistan, a proliferation of militant groups across the Greater Middle East and Africa, and a never-ending, world-spanning war that, at a minimum, has killed about 300 times the number of people murdered in America on 9/11, then give him credit. He was absolutely right.
Days earlier, Congress had authorized Bush "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determine[d] planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 or harbored such organizations or persons." By then, it was already evident, as Bush said in his address, that al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks. But it was equally clear that he had no intention of conducting a limited campaign. "Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there," he announced. "It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated."
Congress had already assented to whatever the president saw fit to do. It had voted 420 to 1 in the House and 98 to 0 in the Senate to grant an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that would give him (and presidents to come) essentially a free hand to make war around the world.
"I believe that it's broad enough for the president to have the authority to do all that he needs to do to deal with this terrorist attack and threat," Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) said at the time. "I also think that it is tight enough that the constitutional requirements and limitations are protected." That AUMF would, however, quickly become a blank check for boundless war.
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