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Comment by lukifer | Hacker News Reader

This is, and has been, the real issue for the last twelve years. Try these on: War on Battle. War on Murder. War on Explosives. War on Guns. They don't really stand up to scrutiny.

War has historically been against a nation-state, or possibly a land mass or ethnicity. And there is clear endgame: surrender by recognized leaders, or unequivocal military domination. But terrorist cells have no leaders, and cannot surrender en masse. And the only way to dominate them militarily is to dominate the entire globe.

The "War on Terror" is not a war. It is declaration of ownership, that says we can deploy military might whenever and wherever we want.

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I'd say the War on Terror has a lot in common with the War on Drugs. Neither have concrete achievable goals, neither has a well defined "enemy" and both tap into deep-seated fears of the voting public.

Those characteristics make them great vehicles for political manoeuvring and expansion of government spending and powers. And this is why I think neither will ever end; I could not see any politician willingly throwing away such a tool. I mean, look at the War on Drugs... we've been "fighting" for over 40 years and are no closer to an end.

Look at what we've lost already to the War on Terror, then try to imagine what we will have given up 30 years from now.

I highly recommend Kevin Simler's "Consciousness: An Outside View" for a richer take on the politics of drugs: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/07/01/consciousness-an-outsid... (Obviously, The Wire also.)

But yes, both the WoD and WoT employ similar tactics: disproportionate power and violence under the guise of safety, while downplaying the human and financial costs to a broader public who is mostly insulated from the reality of the situation.

In both cases, I don't think the motivations for doing so are singular; there's a little racism in there, a little classism, a little jingoism, a good helping of perverse financial incentives, and perhaps most insidiously, Just Because We Can. (See "Lord of War" or "Thank You For Smoking": people like doing what they're good at.)

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