As it turned out, however, the long war turned out to be surprisingly short-lived, at least at the command that pioneered the term. After taking over last month as the head of Central Command, Adm. William J. Fallon quietly retired the phrase.
Military officials said that cultural advisers at the command had become concerned that the concept of a long war alienated Middle East audiences by suggesting that the United States would keep a large number of forces in the region indefinitely.
Terms such as, "snafu" and "radar" entered common parlance to stay during World War II. What makes the language of today's military so much less residual? It's top-down. They tried to shove it down our throats in order to control the way we think about what they're doing.
The phrase was coined by Gen. John P. Abizaid before he retired as head of the Central Command. It was intended to signal to the American public that the country was involved in a lengthy struggle that went well beyond the war in Iraq and was political as well as military.
It would be a test of wills against “Islamofascism,” as President Bush once put it. It would also be a historic challenge that spanned generations much like the battles against Communism.
How can you justify a half a trillion dollars and tens of thousands of US casualties?
Oh! It's an EPIC struggle! A LONG WAR!
Man the barricades! ...
... Upf!... Wait a minute ...
We've changed our minds (or, your minds). (We Pentagonists never believed that baloney anyway ... it was just for civilian intelligence op objectives ... so... nevermind ... the war'll be over by October after next ... right in time for the elections.)
Still Thinking
The Pentagon is also trying to make up its collective overmind about Iraqi security, especially as far as some of the gory details of the Baghdad surge are concerned, at least, that's what Alissa J. Rubin wants us to think.
By late in the day, the American military, under pressure from the Iraqi government, appeared to be rethinking the plan. “This one was obviously one in which the people in the area expressed some concern,” said Bryan Whitman, a spokesman for the Pentagon. “There are aspects of this that the Iraqi government feels at this point are not productive. We’ll continue to work with them on this and other tactics,” he said
Don't worry, guys. Just because because the NY Times says it, doesn't mean it's true. It's a liberal media smear-job. After a few dozen more truck bombs everybody will forget all about the wall and we can move on to the next mendacious and temporary justification for spending your grandchildren's money to kill innocent poor people somewhere half way around the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment