A War against what?

Echoing themes that he’s brought up before, Brendan O’Neill has the audacity to ask in an article on spiked, “So if bin Laden the man is no longer the enemy and bin Laden the symbol has been defeated, who or what is the target of the ongoing war on terror?”

“The more the war drags on,” O’Neill writes, “the more trouble US leaders seem to have pinpointing what America is fighting against.” He continues to argue that the war is “about finding a sense of purpose and mission for the US government,” more than to confront an amorphous, ever changing group of defined terrorists. This point should sound familiar: O’Neill has used it on several occasions to downplay the oil-for-war thesis.

I wholeheartedly agree that the war is doing little to address the threat of terrorism, and, actually, is likely making the situation worse. I even concur that the war is being conducted to gloss over the internal situation at home and at least provide the illusion that we are making headway against this “grave threat to humanity.” Still, this does not discount other motives for the war, especially the oil factor, which have been put into motion alongside our assault on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. As I have noted, policy makers can hold more than one idea in their head at once, and like to use certain aims to mask others.

Beyond that, O’Neill’s conclusion is hard to dispute:

There seems to be a fantasy enemy, against whom Bush and co can make grand pronouncements and big bad threats - and a real enemy, which has continuously eluded American and British forces in Afghanistan. A fantasy war on terror, where America and its allies look strong and determined - and a real war in Afghanistan, where the war aims change on a weekly basis and where operation after operation ends in failure.