War and the Bush Administration

Nice post over at Paperwight:

José Padilla's detention (1189 days and counting) is the paradigmatic example of all of these things. Remember, George W. Bush's administration justifies detaining Padilla because the United States is a battlefield in the "war" on terror.

That "war" will never end, because it's not a war at all. One can't wage "war" on an idea, and certainly a "war" on an idea shouldn't give the executive the authority that it would have in an actual war. In that sense, the "war on terror" is the perfect war to create and sustain the Imperial Presidency: unpredictable and therefore perfectly suited to fear-mongering and bully-pulpit pounding, but unwinnable by military means and therefore perfectly suited to a permanent "war" rationalization for any number of actions. And every square yard of the planet is part of the "battlefield".

If the Republican Extremists believe that they are justified in arresting an American citizen on American soil and detaining him indefinitely on the emperor's president's say-so, they believe the are justified in anything, as long as it's in the name of their "war".

The concept of a permanent, endless war where little real damage gets done was explored by George Orwell in "1984". In many ways, the GWOT is even better-suited for sustaining the power of the rulers than the skirmishes at the edges of the three great empires that Orwell wrote about. Also, recall that Michael Moore stressed exactly these points in "Fahrenheit 9/11". As time goes on, we will all tend to gravitate towards Michael Moore's political positions, as much as many of us may dislike the slide, because he saw sooner than most where the GWOT is going.