Part 2 - "Beam Me Up, Scottie!"

Tom Engelhardt

Part 2 - "Beam Me Up, Scottie!"

Thu Feb 9, 2006 03:57

Part 2 and end:

HI-HO, HI-HO, IT'S OFF TO THE LONGEST WAR WE GO:

Language, what would the Bush administration do without it? One of John Wayne's famous lines was, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." And the Bush administration is actively of that linguistic school. Of course, when reality bites you in the you-know-what and you can't do a heck of a lot about it, what are you going to do but re-label your product? In this way, the "war on terror," aka, "the Global War on Terror," aka "GWOT," aka "World War IV," aka "the Global Struggle against Violent Extremism," has just become, by administration fiat, "the Longest War" (a phrase that's been hanging around unloved in Neocon Land for a long time <http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2293> , though it's now being attributed to former Centcom Commander John Abizaid <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/02/AR2006020202242_pf.html> . It's undoubtedly been chosen becaus! e the President's lovely global "war" has gone on remarkably... well, long.

The phrase was on the President's lips last Tuesday night. It led off the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, released last week. It was mentioned by various administration officials and promoted heavily by Donald Rumsfeld, who was also plugging a world in which, as Lolita Baldor of AP <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/02/AR2006020200831_pf.html> reported, "despite progress in fighting terrorism, the threat today may be greater than ever before because the available weapons are far more dangerous." In a speech at the National Press Club, subtly entitled, "The Long War," <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/02/AR2006020202296_pf.html> the Don touched all the bases.

He compared Osama bin Laden to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin, and claimed we were in a "generational conflict" like the Cold War of which Iraq and Afghanistan were merely the "early battles." Meanwhile, across town,! our intelligence tsar <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/02/AR2006020200227_pf.html> was assuring Congress that U.S. "intelligence reporting" -- why am I already losing confidence in this statement? -- "indicates that nearly 40 terrorist organizations, insurgencies, or cults have used, possessed, or expressed an interest in chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear agents or weapons." (Somewhere in all this, I think I can hear Karl Rove conducting a midterm election campaign based on the only card this administration still has in its hand: the fear of terrorism.)

"GLOBAL STRUGGLE AGAINST VIOLENT EXTREMISM" IN THE DUSTBIN OF HISTORY

Still, I suspect "the Long War" will soon join the "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism" in the dustbin of history. In fact, on naming its terror war, the Bush administration could probably use a little help. How about the Scare-You-to-Death-Struggle-for-Global-Ethanol-Independence-and-Republican-Electoral-Victories War (or SYTDSFGEIAREVW)? If that doesn't work for you, the Nation magazine's Katrina van den Heuvel is ready to lend a hand. Having already published her hilarious The Dictionary of Republicanisms <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/156025789X/nationbooks08> , she's now launching a contest <http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=56210> to capture the essence of GWOT-ability (a little like guacamole) in a single, punchy name.

CLUB HOMELAND DETENTION:

Halliburton, the first corporation into Iraq, contractually speaking, and the biggest financial winner <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/05/AR2005070501655.html> in the "reconstruction" sweepstakes for that deconstructed country, fortuitously also found itself perched right atop the list of post-Katrina New Orleans <http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=21843> reconstruction contractors. Now, through its subsidiary KBR, known for building military bases to last, as well as Guantanamo's infamous "cages," <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FE14Ak03.html> Halliburton gets a shot at the real American thing -- actual emergency detention centers for "immigrants" -- or, hey, in a crisis, for whomever <http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=eed74d9d44c30493706fe03f4c9b3a77> .

The Army Corps of Engineers awarded it a contract last month -- t! hough the story only oozed out this week -- worth up to $385 million (not including the near-obligatory overcharges) for, according to the New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/national/04halliburton.html?_r=1&oref=slogin> , "an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space." It's those "new programs" that give special pause.

THEY FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW LOST:

Finally, in the week that just was, our President and his top officials continued their vigorous efforts to rewrite the Constitution. They took up the National Security Agency <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/04/AR2006020401373.html> warrantless spying, evidently had an unannounced constitutional convention in the White House, called on the peerless minds of various White House and justice department lawyers, asked the Attorney General (former White House Counsel, former General Counsel, and friend) Alberto Gonzales for his honest opinion, and then had the good sense to double check with lawyers at the NSA <http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020206E.shtml> to make sure everything <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/05/EDGQGH2G7U1.DTL&hw=jane+harman&sn=001&sc=1000> that agency had been doing was genuinely and legally <http://www.boston.com/news/n!ation/washington/articles/2006/02/02/specialists_doubt_legality_of_wiretaps?mode=PF> below board and utterly constitutional.

Finally, they turned the whole ball of wax over to Karl Rove, who recognized an election issue when he saw one, and next thing you knew, there was the President, at the State of the Union, insisting, as in some Avon ad, that al-Qaeda was calling and it was darn tootin' constitutional as all get out to listen in on what's conveniently been relabeled "a terrorist surveillance program" (no genuine citizens allowed to join!).

I suppose, based on that unbelievably dreary textbook you had to read back in junior high civics class, you thought amending the Constitution took a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress and then passage by three-quarters of the states. Silly you! It only takes two-thirds of the President's brain, three-quarters of the Vice President's brain, and 100% of his Chief of Staff David Addington's brain; toss in the odd administration lawyer or two to check the fine print, and, as they say in one province of Canada (don't shoot!), Voilà!

NOW, UNBUCKLE THOSE STRAPS, TAKE THAT HELMET OFF, AND RELAX. IT'S A NEW WEEK. ENJOY YOURSELF!

Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of the American Empire Project <http://www.americanempireproject.com/> and the author of The End of Victory Culture <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1558491333/nationbooks08> , a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War. His novel, The Last Days of Publishing <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1558495061/nationbooks08> , has recently come out in paperback.

Copyright 2006 Tom Engelhardt

Click here to read more of this dispatch. <http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=56990>

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