Global Counter-Insurgency

Anonymous posted two references to the shift in rhetoric about the long war.

Sen. John Kerry says Pakistan aid bill to be passed shortly , and that:

He opposed the use of term war on terror.

"What we are doing is conducting global counterinsurgency. And a counterinsurgency by definition needs to win hearts and minds of people it has to bring people on your side not push them away. So , I think we have to do a better job of implementing [o]ur strategy."

Once again, a member of the US government does question the US strategy at all. The only problem he sees is that the strategy has not been implemented correctly.

In Obama and the counter-insurgency era, Anthony Fenton concludes that

Since the Obama administration campaigned on the continuity of counter-insurgency and irregular war as key elements of US power projection under his administration, it is likely that these policies will attain a level of popular support not experienced by the Bush administration, and will see little critical scrutiny by the media. The challenge will be to shed light on and critically examine these policies as they manifest in any number of settings around the world in the days to come.

I think that Fenton forgets that the War on Terror was very popular in 2001 and 2002 both in the USA and here in Australia. I would say that the general population was thirsty for revenge over the attacks on 11 September 2001.

Pres. Bush could have called it the War on XYZZY and the people would have understood it to be a war on Islam. Such was the racism that underlay the response at the time.

The War on Terror has the effect of casting the US government as the good guys and the defenders of that is good and pure. It was a term for the time. Now that the war is dragging on and the timetable for the conquest of the Middle East is falling behind every day, a change in semantics is needed to maintain support.

It is interesting to note that both of these articles stress the continuity with the Bush administration. This is a way of saying that the strategy is correct and the US government is resolute in this matter. Only a few adjustments need to be made: "Smart Power" instead of "Hard Power" or "Soft Power".

But even the term, "Global Counter-Insurgency", is a mistake. The only thing that unites all of these resistence groups is the hatred of US military and economic incursions. The danger is that the US strategy make create the monster that it seeks to destroy.