When President Bush declared "War on Terror" he comitted the United States to an unwinnable, eternal war. He comitted us to something that simply cannot be won using military, or even police forces. You cannot wage war on a concept as concepts cannot be killed. The same is true of war on a tactic, terrorism in this case, as tactics do not vanish due military force being applied in a given place and time. Even if forgotten, there is no method to prevent the recreation/reinvention of such concepts and tactics.
What President Bush should have committed us to is the utter destruction of Al Qaeda and its allies and supporters. Nothing more, nothing less. Let the complete annilation of that terrorist organization speak to the others. It would have been a goal with fixed objectives and an obtainable goal.
Now, we have an endless morass and laws that run counter to American traditions at home.
This Administration has committed us to an eternal war on the basis of interventionism and hubris. These are not remotedly conservative traits, but rather traits most often associated with the likes of Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson. That the nominally conservative American party has been suckered into supporting this vis a vis backing the Party is a shame as it runs inherently counter to everything the Goldwaterian Republican Party stood for.
And so, here we are with no way out other than to lose face and deal with a world made more dangerous due to our actions.
Not even if those responsible, President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Secratary of State Rice, former Secratery of Defense Rumsfeld, Rove and others were to fall on their swords would it help assuage the situation in the least at this point.
How is it that the conservative party in the United States was so rapidly and thoroughly subverted that it has become the major, and willing, instrument of the most unconservative foreign policy we have ever had?
