Do Bush & Co. think this is still the Cold War?

[elperromagico]

Have they simply replaced one -ism with another?

A lot of the theories and practices that are floating around these days seem to be straight out of the Cold War playbook.

If one country falls to Communism terrorism, others will follow.

Our troops will remain in Vietnam Iraq until the South Vietnamese Iraqis are able to fight the North Vietnamese insurgency on their own. Then we will begin to withdraw.

You'll even occasionally hear talk about the use of nuclear force against countries said to harbor terrorists, as though Mutually Assured Destruction was still a safeguard.

Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, et cetera are always saying that the war on terror is a "new kind of war."

Why, then, are they using the same approaches... approaches which, I hasten to add, really didn't work in the first place?

[James T. Kirk]

1. Yeah! They just don't get it. We won the Cold War a long time ago!

They just want to relive the old gloriuos days when we were all united in fighting communism. Well guess what, George! We're not united!

[AntiCoup2K4]

2. That's exactly what it is....

Another grossly exaggerated war, designed to keep defense contractors in business, and the people in fear.

[tk2kewl]

3. right. cold war, world war, terror war...

don't matter as long as it's war

[Skidmore]

4. There's no money in peace.

[endarkenment]

5. They realized that allowing the cold war to end was a Big Mistake

So now we have the permanent war to justify all of their bullshit. War without end.

[EarlG]

6. Watch "The Power Of Nightmares"

It explains the whole thing rather well.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/3755686.stm

[Lexingtonian]

7. the key -ism is Manichaeanism

They make up analogies and work via analogies, but the analogies are are always changing. Their Feindbild never does.

[indepat]

8. Hot wars created to replace the cold war, but with a new bogeyman?

[elperromagico]

9. Terrorism is the current bogeyman.

What's more, terrorism is a far more vital bogeyman because it cannot be pinned down to a certain country on a map; terrorism can theoretically be found anywhere and can be far more broadly defined (as it was in Iraq prior to the Iraq war).

[Inland]

10. Cold war WAS won--through containment and 70 years of time.

That's too boring for Bush. He only imitates the cold war in it's WORST aspects, that is, when it stopped being cold and turned hot and dangerous.

Just as he hated Yalta, and supporting stability, he likes the Vietnam parts. Go figure.