A Make-Over to Disguise Ugly U.S. Policy

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A Make-Over to Disguise Ugly U.S. Policy

June 13, 2005


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by Ivan Eland

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After defeating al Qaeda, at least in their own minds, top officials of the Bush administration are now contemplating a war against “violent extremism.” (I call it the WAVE.) Apparently, the already grandiose “Global War on Terrorism”—in bureaucratic jargon, the GWOT—just wasn’t extravagant enough for an administration that thinks really big. Although administration officials implicitly acknowledge the spreading conflagration of global Islamic jihad, they are oblivious to their own culpability in causing it.

The real problem is that the administration, in permanent campaign mode even after reelection, has always regarded the GWOT as a political marketing gimmick, both at home and abroad. President Bush kicked off the sales effort a month after 9/11 with a bombastic presidential directive that promised the “elimination of terrorism as a threat to our way of life.”

But alas, all good marketing campaigns eventually get stale and that is evidently what has happened to the GWOT. One senior administration official, quoted in the Washington Post, indirectly admitted that a political make-over was again underway in the nation’s capital: “GWOT is catchy, but there may be a better way to describe it.”

In Washington, changes in surface rhetoric often signal transformation in underlying policy. Instead of concentrating its efforts to capture or kill the leadership of al Qaeda, the terrorist group that actually attacked the United States, the administration came up with the broader GWOT catchphrase so that an invasion of Iraq could fit under its umbrella. Who knows what additional administration monkey business will be perpetrated under the cover of the even wider WAVE. The target of any U.S. military operation wouldn’t even need to kill innocent civilians or have alleged affiliations with those who do, such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. If you think the GWOT opened a can of worms, just think of the possibilities under the WAVE.




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http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/c-e/eland/2005/eland061305.htm