{"id":143245,"date":"2015-02-02T15:09:34","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T15:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=143245"},"modified":"2015-02-02T15:16:02","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T15:16:02","slug":"war-new-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/war-new-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"War Is the New Normal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was launched immediately after the 9\/11 attacks, when I was still in the military, and almost immediately became known as the Global War on Terror, or GWOT. Pentagon insiders called it \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/kilcullens-long-war\" target=\"_blank\">the long war<\/a>,\u201d an open-ended, perhaps unending, conflict against nations and terror networks mainly of a radical Islamist bent. It saw the revival of counterinsurgency doctrine, buried in the aftermath of defeat in Vietnam, and a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/pentagon-book-club\" target=\"_blank\">reinterpretation<\/a> of that disaster as well. Over the years, its chief characteristic became ever clearer: a \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0107048\/\" target=\"_blank\">Groundhog Day<\/a>\u201d kind of repetition. Just when you thought it was over (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tomdispatch.com\/post\/175920\/tomgram%3A_peter_van_buren%2C_iraq_and_the_battle_of_the_potomac\/\" target=\"_blank\">Iraq<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tomdispatch.com\/post\/175914\/tomgram%3A_ann_jones%2C_genuine%2C_handcrafted%2C_man-made_government\" target=\"_blank\">Afghanistan<\/a>), just after victory (of a sort) was declared, it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tomdispatch.com\/blog\/175927\/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_iraq_war_4.0\/\" target=\"_blank\">began again<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Now, as we find ourselves enmeshed in Iraq War 3.0, what better way to memorialize the post-9\/11 American way of war than through repetition. Back in July 2010, I wrote an article for <em>TomDispatch<\/em> on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tomdispatch.com\/archive\/175271\/\" target=\"_blank\">seven reasons<\/a> why America can\u2019t stop making war. More than four years later, with the war on terror still ongoing, with the mission eternally unaccomplished, here\u2019s a fresh take on the top seven reasons why never-ending war is the new normal in America. In this sequel, I make only one promise: no declarations of victory (and mark it on your calendars, I\u2019m planning to be back with seven new reasons in 2019).<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. The privatization of war<\/strong>: The U.S. military\u2019s recourse to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Private_military_company\" target=\"_blank\">private contractors<\/a> has strengthened the profit motive for war-making and prolonged wars as well. Unlike the citizen-soldiers of past eras, the mobilized <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tomdispatch.com\/archive\/175507\/tom_engelhardt_the_arrival_of_the_warrior_corporation\" target=\"_blank\">warrior corporations<\/a> of America\u2019s new mercenary moment\u2013the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Halliburton\" target=\"_blank\">Halliburton<\/a>\/KBRs (nearly <a href=\"http:\/\/readersupportednews.org\/news-section2\/308-12\/16561-focus-cheneys-halliburton-made-395-billion-on-iraq-war\" target=\"_blank\">$40 billion<\/a> in contracts for the Iraq War alone), the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/DynCorp\" target=\"_blank\">DynCorps<\/a> ($4.1 billion to train 150,000 Iraqi police), and the<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Blackwater:_The_Rise_of_the_World%27s_Most_Powerful_Mercenary_Army\" target=\"_blank\">Blackwater\/Xe\/Academis<\/a> ($1.3 billion in Iraq, along with <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Blackwater_Baghdad_shootings\" target=\"_blank\">boatloads of controversy<\/a>)\u2013have no incentive to demobilize. Like most corporations, their business model is based on profit through growth, and growth is most rapid when wars and preparations for more of them are the favored options in Washington.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/report\/item\/war_is_the_new_normal_20150202?\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was launched immediately after the 9\/11 attacks, when I was still in the military, and almost immediately became known as the Global War on Terror, or GWOT. Pentagon insiders called it \u201cthe long war,\u201d an open-ended, perhaps unending, conflict against nations and terror networks mainly of a radical Islamist bent. It saw the revival [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":134122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-143245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news","9":"category-war-terrorism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}