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Given that the "War on Terror" -- AKA the "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism," AKA the "Long War" -- is the first entirely imaginary war fought in the long history of the United States,* I think keeping track of its rhetorical shifts is important.
Remember that the administration tried to ditch the phrase "War on Terror", only to bring it back after feeling some heat from war-bloggers and other right-wing crazies. The administration's UK puppies formally ditched the phrase last December.
Anyway, while the "War on Terror" was at times hotly debated -- the phrase and associated policies -- the idea that this phantom war would last in perpetuity -- or at least until American hegemony had declined to a sufficient degree that our foreign policy elite could safely be ignored -- was taken almost as a given. Indeed, the Pentagon laid out a detailed "Long war" strategy in early 2006.
But a lot can change in a year. Bowing to reality, the military this week -- struggling to keep up with demand -- rejected the label …
Centcom: No more 'long war.'
"In this case, the idea that we are going to be involved in a 'Long War,' at the current level of operations, is not likely and unhelpful," Centcom spokesman Lt. Col. Matt McLaughlin said. "We remain committed to our friends and allies in the region and to countering al-Qaida inspired extremism where it manifests itself. But one of our goals is to lessen our presence over time, [and] we didn't feel that the term 'Long War' captured this nuance."
(More here from Stars and Stripes.)
Got it? No more Long War. That can't be bad -- after all, it's a step closer to declaring victory and ending the "War on Terror" once and for all.
*Yes, I hear you out there saying: 'what about the war in drugs, wasn't that an imaginary war'? Well, I won't claim that it was a real one, but I will argue that the label was understood by most reasonable people to be figurative. It wasn't invoked as the basis of claiming that we should be operating on an actual, literal wartime footing.
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