Global War on Terror (GWOT) A Bad Choice of Words

Good quote attributed to John Nagl by a WaPo article about stopping use of the term GWOT: 

"John A. Nagl, the former Army officer who helped write the military's latest counterinsurgency field manual, said the phrase "was enormously unfortunate because I think it pulled together disparate organizations and insurgencies."

"Our strategy should be to divide and conquer rather than make of enemies more than they are," said Nagl, now president of the Center for a New American Security, a defense policy think tank in Washington. "We are facing a number of different insurgencies around the globe -- some have local causes, some of them are transnational. Viewing them all through one lens distorts the picture and magnifies the enemy."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032402818.html

GWOT implies that the war on "terror", can be won. When does one say, Ok the Global War on Terror is over? At the present can it ever be over and at what conclusion do you find victory?

Great comments everyone. I really appreciate your input on this topic. -BW

The fundamenalists(al Qaeda, Taliban, et al) of Islam and its previous incarnations are not about hate and fear.  They are focused on the destruction and or enslavement those of the peoples of 'western' and 'eastern' ideals. They will not stop until this is accomplished. If you travel to the areas of the old 'Silk Road', from eastern China to western Europe, you will see the ruins of cities, towns, villages and posts destroyed by earlier 'Islamist' fundamentalists. One of the  first enemies of the USA are Islamic fundamentalists, as they kidnapped and held hostage several American citizens in what is now Lybia during the late 1700s. As they "have all the time in the world" and "are rewarded in death and life for actions against non-Islamist", there is only one way to solve the issue...... As we cannot do it, nor are we willing to do it, they will forever be fighting to their ultimate goal, until the last man.

It's like continuing to crap in a toilet that's broken and refusing to fix the toilet and wondering why the room is filling up with crap.  Focus on the source.  Thanks for continued great topics.

... A trillion dollars spent on GWOT could have went a long way to coming up with an alternative to oil, and then we wouldn't be dealing with all the bullshit in the middle east. We also have our laundry list of hypocrisy going back decades on who we've supported and who we continue to support. We just need to get the F out and stop sending them oil money. Drilling on our own soil is not enough, that oil will still be bought and traded on the global oil market. We, as the largest consumer in the world for decades, just need to get out and stop buying period.

Then again, this kind of thinking is just as wishful as ending the "war" on drugs...

Completely agree with you mate, people this days don't even give a shit about the world outside the U.S. It makes me sad, I thought the U.S. would be a good role model to other countries but no. I hope the U.S. gets out of the shithole

I think @Tango9 made a valid comment, that parallels what Brandon stated above.  My counter point is; how can we gain the attention of the US public and unify them into demanding US govt' action along these lines?  With out support from our own public, (ask the KONY2012 guys about marketing?), how do we achieve our goals of influencing change through the limited resources of the DoD?  9/11 woke the "Sleeping Tiger,"(1930's Japanese ref.), for a little while, now the Tiger is nodding off again.  

good thoughts man. 

Nice topic Brandon. Agreed. But I have to say, at 73 million, we will have to control extremism. To date, there are only two things that will kill that many haters quickly. 1) love, 2) atom bomb. And we know love will never work. I think Tombstone is exactly right, and many guys coming back from the arena are saying the exact same thing. We must not abandon those areas that need to be built, and educated. We must stay diligent. I guess baby steps are good as long as SOCOM has the autoimmunity to get the job done. My 2¢

I'm with you on most of this, though I would argue that Islam preaches the intolerance that leads to extremist violence. One could try to make the same claim about Christianity but I would just point out that the intolerant Catholic Church decided to admit homophiles into the priesthood back in the 70s when most people in this country still favored raids on gay bars and had anti-sodomy laws on the books. There have been Christian terrorists but they have not been supported by the mainstream churches with money, manpower and sympathy. Christianity seeks converts thru love, while Islam converts by the sword. I think you also make a good point about the danger of not seeing the forest for the trees when it comes to the kind of war we are fighting. If we are not going to fight on the offense, take the initiative and bring the blood and death to the terrorists and the states which support them. Then we are going to have to fight defensively. Which means drones surveilling our own people, security checkpoints everywhere, roving wiretaps, RAPTOR reading your emails and the extrajudicial killing of American citizens who's names the President keeps on a list. If we're not going to deal with the threat externally then we have no choice but to treat our own people as if they are the threat and hope we can intercept a terror plot internally That leaves us fighting on terms that favor the terrorists. I would also posit that there are many politicians of a more authoritarian bent that have no problem at all with this suspension of our civil liberties for the purposes of internal security, that the people themselves are the biggest threat to the security of the State. Or am I the only one who has noticed that we are increasingly being referred to as "Workers" by this administraton instead of "Americans" or "Citizens?" If I was the strategist at Al Qaeda, I'd write everything down since the quick drone strikes of late have made verbal instructions a bit unreliable. I would seek to isolate the US by attacking the weakest parts of our country. Our Allies and our trade. Attack America's allies in Europe and Asia, peel them away from America. Use friendly governments in the UN to agitate against America and her allies. Attack American trade and her ports, not her people. Use a dirty bomb in the port of Los Angeles or New York, not the population centers. Build Mosques and Madrassas in America. Convert mushy headed Americans away from their New Age Mysticisms to Islam. Immigrate in mass to the US and balkanize its communities. Carve out sovereign neigborhoods, towns and then cities that are ruled by Sharia. The reflexive multi-culteralism of the American Left will support us in this effort. They will give us our own public schools where we can teach our language, religion and customs to our children. They will make exceptions in their laws so we can be subject to our laws instead of theirs. We can feign cooperation and tolerance for other religions(or even the absense of religion) until we are at parity with them and then we will draw the sword. It is the way we have always done it....Inshallah

In relation to combating terrorism, Australia had a CT initiative earlier in the last decade that was based on building islamic schools in poor areas of Indonesia and providing better education in those areas. Australia has since gone from second most hated country in Indonesia to second most loved. I think it's a good way to tackle terrorism, you can kill as many terrorist as you want but in the end you really need to get to the root of it in order to really prevent it.

http://en.islamtoday.net/artshow-232-4476.htm

Fuck yeah dude.

If I remember correctly didnt the Pentagon in the opening days have Operation Infinite Justice before Enduring Freedom, which the POTUS, when commenting used the word "Crusade" in the press statement and that created some controversy in the press? Wasnt it pulled and we got OEF and its generic statements???

GWOT was a terrible idea from the get-go but gods forbid you said anything against it back then. I tried many times and got fried for it in several political and military blogs comments section. You were automatically deemed anti-American or worse. The GWOT was a political concoction from the Bush administration think tank made up of a bunch of Neo-cons. Remember them? You hardly hear about them or the Heritage Foundation any more. Coupled with the GWOT was their philosophy of nation-building and aggressively spreading democracy around the world. It was just one massive cluster-fuck of epic proportions. GWOT was quietly killed off as a term around 2007 or so by the Pentagon while Bush was still in office but its ghost still appears from time to time.

Defeating radical Islam has no easy answers. I'm looking forward to hearing Rob DuBois's presentation at SNS LA on the use of smart power. We definitely need to get smarter about how we address this issue.

I remember years back someone started calling it a war against Islamo-Fascism, which is the best I've heard over the years. But even that term is a little broad (Saudi Arabia anyone?).

President Bush used it a couple times but caught a lot of flak and dropped it. We can't have a war with the name of the host religion in it, now can we?

The GWOT was likely chosen as the PC alternative to The War on Radical Islamic Jihadists.

As long as the madrases provide a means to channel the discontent, poverty, and hatred away from the their own failed social, political, economic, and religious institutions, their leaders will continue to allow them. The madrases won't be closed until their graduates turn on their own political leaders. By then it may be too late for an entire nation. I'm looking at you Pakistan.

The "Cyber 911", that I've mentioned in a previous posting also comes to mind as well, along with the chemical or biological scenario.  What I see a lot in society now is that most people feel "entitled" to things and they feel that things should be given to them without so much as lifting a finger to achieve it.  It makes you sick to think that we are at a critical point in our society from the days where many more people believed in work ethic and sacrifice to a culture of laziness and people who are more worried about their fashion sense or when they can obtain the newest iphone to impress their friends.  

Great article Brandon, it's a shame to see the majority of people live in such a "quick fix" society relying on the infrastructure of society to solve their problems. I hope there will be a shift in the future to solving problems at the root opposed to mopping up the consequences.

Our paleolithic ancestors are probably rolling in their graves right now.

@BrandonTWebb amen right on target.

Global War on Intolerance probably just sounds a little too PC????  But I'm feelin' ya.  It's ultimately about changing minds and values.  How do we ban stupidity and intolerance?  Turn the Earth into a Police state?  Farenheight 451, 1984, thought police, Clock work Orange?    

@BrandonTWebb I just left a comment there.

Great points Brandon. More so here at home. The average American has no idea what terrorism and those waging it are. Yes, they do know AQ and UBL. Yes, they know it's bad, but fortunately they never saw this first hand or had to suffer it and thus they are not really prepared to deal with it: the fear, the uncertainty and the carnage.

It is a good thing that they don't know this. However, I can't help it but lay away at night just thinking what these - the terrorists - retards might try to do next.

It's just too scary a thought.

Ask any of those TSA EOD advisors, many of whom are ex-military EOD guys from the Navy, ask them what keeps 'em up at night it's the organic bombs, can't detect 'em.