War on terror could last 30 years: report

[sabra]

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,20794524-5006506,00.html

War on terror could last 30 years: report

THE fight against terrorism could last 30 years or more, according to a report published by a British think tank that specialises in international security.

"There is every prospect of the 'war on terror' extending for 30 years or more," said the report by the Oxford Research Group.

...

The report showed that the United States is now faced with a dilemma: if it withdraws from Iraq, insurgent groups will be able to operate freely in the biggest oil reserve in the world.

"If it stays, though, then US soldiers become an increasing magnet for radical factions, with Iraq becoming a training ground for new generations of paramilitaries, just as Afghanistan was in the 1980s against the Soviet occupying forces," the report said.

...

The importance of oil in the region "means that it would be entirely unacceptable for the United States to consider withdrawal from Iraq, no matter how insecure the environment".

[buddysmellgood]

1. So how does a war on terror end? Does everybody die? Why 30 years?

[Ms. Clio]

9. that's when they plan to have extracted every last drop of oil?

[uppityperson]

16. everyone is on tranquilizers?

"ending the war on terror" is as stupid a phrase as "war on terror" is. Maybe they are predicting that none of the current administration will be alive more than 30 yrs? What about other bombings and such? argh. I hate those terms.

[ThsMchneKilsFascists]

30. How do you declare victory on an emotion?

:shrug:

[ShockediSay]

2. It will last forever

Terror has been w/ us forever

We were attacked by al Qaeda

We continue to be attacked by al Qaedans

To be "at war with terror" gives our government license to pick which terrors they want to attack

The list will go on forever

Thereby so empowering our government forever

Until our resources are so strained, so thinned

We are easy pickins' for the likes of China, etc

Hamas has nothing to do with al Qaeda

Sadaam had nothing to do with al Qaeda

The list goes on and on

[marmar]

3. Something tells me that this think tank, unlike traffic in Britain,....

drives on the right.

The so-called War on Terror is a scam. Just another cog in the military-industrial complex's perpetual war effort.

[angstlessk]

7. Yes, American Enterprise Institute with a British accent...

Same thing different accent. Like the poster below said, terror has been with us always and will continue till we ignore global warming and humans become an extinct species!

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. No, not really - it has some Quaker connections

and with others in the general anti-war area, especially working against nuclear proliferation:

John Sloboda took up his appointment as Executive Director of Oxford Research Group in January 2004. John is also Professor of Psychology at the University of Keele, where he has worked for 30 years. John has been active in human security initiatives for two decades. He is a founding member of Keele's Alternative Globalisations Research Network and the Network of Activist Scholars of Politics and International Relations (Naspir), and is currently researching the psychological factors underlying the recent massive growth of the global anti-war movement. In 1999-2000 he worked with the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, and researched effects on the civilian population of the NATO bombing campaign. Most recently, he co-founded and manages the website www.iraqbodycount.net which quickly became a key source of information about civilian casualties for the media and NGOs worldwide during the Iraq war and its aftermath.
...
Frank Barnaby is Nuclear Issues Consultant to Oxford Research Group, and has been on ORG's Council of Advisers since its inception. He is a nuclear physicist by training and worked at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, Aldermaston between1951-57. He was on the senior scientific staff of the Medical Research Council when a university lecturer at University College London (1957-67). He was Executive Secretary of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affaires in the late 1960s and Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) from 1971-81. He was Guest Professor at the Free University, Amsterdam (1981-85) and Visiting Professor at the University of Minnesota in 1985.
...
Paul Rogers is Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford, and Global Security Consultant to Oxford Research Group. Professor Rogers has worked in the field of international security, arms control and political violence for over 30 years. He lectures at universities and defence colleges in several countries and has written 20 books, including 'Losing Control: Global Security in the Early 21st Century' (Pluto Press, 2000; 2nd Edition, 2002) and most recently 'A War Too Far: Iraq, Iran and the New American Century' (Pluto Press, 2006). He writes monthly briefings analysing the international security situation for the Oxford Research Group website and since October 2001 has written a series of ORG Briefing Papers on international security and the 'war on terror', including 'Endless War: The Global War on Terror and the New Bush Administration' (March 2005) and 'Iran: Consequences of a War' (February 2006). Paul is a regular commentator on global security issues in both the national and international media.
...
Janet Bloomfield is UK Security Policy Consultant to Oxford Research Group. She is also the British Coordinator of the Atomic Mirror, a small non-profit programme that uses the arts to raise awareness of nuclear issues. She has been active in the anti-nuclear movement since 1981 and from 1993-1996 she was Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). She currently serves as an honorary Vice-President of CND. She also serves as Clerk of the Peace and Disarmament Programme of Quaker Peace and Social Witness in the UK. Internationally, she consults with the Geneva-based International Peace Bureau (and served as Vice-President, 1994-1997), a Nobel Peace Prize winning network of non-aligned peace organisations in 44 countries, which nominated Joseph Rotblat for the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize. She has been involved with Abolition 2000, a global network of over 2000 citizen groups working for a nuclear free world, since its inception in 1995, and currently sits on its administrative council as well as being convenor of its Abolition Now! Campaign Working Group. She writes and speaks widely on peace and disarmament issues both in the UK and abroad.
...
http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/aboutus/staff.htm

And so on.

[dailykoff]

27. A lot of people got snookered by the terror scare

and a lot of organizations have a vested interest in remaining so. It isn't always easy to tell the difference.

[Briar]

23. Nope

The Daily Telegraph drives on the right, but the report isn't promoting the "war on terror" or the policies which feed on it. Quite the contrary, once one gets away from the spin. The point is making is that this so-called war is a self serving one on the part of the people promoting it, the US and west in general - change won't come from "victory" but from a change in our policies. "In reality there will be little change until the United States faces up to the need for a fundamental re-think of its policies".

Though I agree with the person who said that terror is always with us. It is. It is the last resort of the powerless against the powerful. And we'll always have both.

[Ezlivin]

4. Why Not? War on Drugs is over 30 years old and shows no signs of abating

These people know on which side their bread is buttered. Make no mistake, this is all about profits.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

14. But the War on Drugs has been a success.

They've interdicted 2 or 3% of imports.

You've got to make a phone call or walk outdoors to get contraband in this country.

:patriot:

[Wickerman]

5. Sure wish we would've spent 300$ Billion on alt energy

instead of pissing it and all those lives away in Iraq.

[wtmusic]

6. How much are these guys paid?

What an idiotic conclusion.

[sui generis]

8. gosh can someone tell me when it started?

I was in Germany during Baader Meinhoff and the RAF and in Italy during Black September. I grew up in and around Munich. I lived in Spain briefly during the Basque separatist violence. I'm not dreadfully ancient or anything - I was a young kid at the time, but it seems to me that The Woah On Terrayizm did not start with the collapse of the towers.

:shrug:

[jannyk]

11. And it won't end with the death of Bin Laden either

terrorism is as old as civilization. Any people being oppressed by another has practised some form of 'terrorism'. As you said, Baader Meinhoff, ETA, Basque Separatists, IRA, the Irgun had all been operating for years

I grew up in London during the IRA bombings, my first job was in a building next to the Old Bailey when they was bombed. The IRA of course, was almost fully funded by the US - bombing civilians didn't seem to be a problem for them then.

Only when the US was a target did 'terrorism' become a problem - such hypocrits.

The war on selected 'terror' will last as long as it suits the global power brokers - no more, no less. Then we will declare war on Oceania .... or maybe Asiana

[OwnedByFerrets]

10. I would have been ashamed to put my name on

a piece of unintellegent trash like this report. Terrorism has been a part of humanism for a long, long time, and as long as there is inequity in this world, there always will be some kind of terrorism.

[let us vote]

12. A war on an idea is a "1984" permanent war

Why does Pelosi go along with this?

[Trillo]

13. It's the opportunity for endless no-bid contracts

for administration cronies!

Next step — The Draft! Citizen Soldiers fighting and dying for the Corporatist' War for Profits.

[AngryOldDem]

15. Wasn't it supposed to last just six weeks

When the U.S. invaded Iraq?

[POAS]

17. I've got some news for these analysts

Barabas was considered an insurgent and terrorist. That was a mere two thousand years ago.

Now how long will the world fight terrorism again?

[aaronbees]

18. Welcome to the endless war

Who's the Oxford Research Group and who's paying them for this bilge? The observation that toppling Saddam by force made this mess possible is spot on, but the conclusion that we can't leave because we must protect oil interests is just laughable.

[IndianaGreen]

19. It's not our war!

We are not the ones that dropped cluster bombs on Lebanon or have held the Palestinians in an endless pogrom since 1967. We are not the ones that invaded Iraq and destroyed that society. We are not the ones that kicked the Taliban out of power and then turned around and kept the religious wackos in charge of "virtue and morals." We are not the ones that held the hand of the king of Saudi Arabia and then ignore his financing of the racist, misogynist, and anti-Semitic madrassas all over the world. We are not the ones that spoke of peace with Israel, then turned around and issued vouchers for the manufacturing of suicide belts. We are not the ones that spoke of American freedoms and way of life, and then established a Hitlerian concentration camp and torture gulag.

It's not our war!

[LynnTheDem]

20. Go on invading, occupying, killing raping torturing other people's kids...

and countries, and the "war on terror" will go on until every human is stone-cold dead.

[LynnTheDem]

21. Notice the REAL reason for American deaths in Iraq...

"The importance of oil..."

We're staying in Iraq...FOR THE OIL.

We're killing & dying in Iraq...FOR THE OIL.

We will continue to allow Americans to kill & die in Iraq...FOR THE OIL.

May God help us all.

[some guy]

24. I suppose it could last 30 years,

but I think the US will go bankrupt long before that, so we won't be much of a factor for very much longer. 5 - 7 more years, tops. And that's a generous estimate.

[Joe Bacon]

26. YOU GOT IT RIGHT!

The Red Ink Republicans are deliberately bankrupting us. Make no mistake about it, Grover Norquist won't stop until his wet dream of turning the US into one big Ayn Randian Galt's Gulch has become a reality.

Remember, this is the same Grover Norquist who argues that we should hire third world residents for $100 a month to fight for us, instead of doing it ourselves. Under Grover's on the cheap plan, we won't need a VA to take care of disabled mercenaries. They're on their own!

[leesa]

25. And accomplish nothing...kaaaching!!

Perhaps this is why the draft needs to come back. Americans are now going "ho-hum, 30 years of killing. What's for breakfast?"

[dailykoff]

28. If it didn't, would anybody need

a "think tank that specialises in international security"?

[cambie]

29. They didn’t say War, or Terror

They said “War on Terror”. That is a brand name, a slogan, and slogans can go stale very suddenly. Remember “coalition of the willing”? After we had heard that a thousand times, abruptly sometime in late 2004 they cut it off, and it was never uttered again. Remember, “weapons of mass destruction”? One day the focus group found that it was selling like a wooden nickel and made George stop saying it. Weapons of what!? These episodes of mass turkey behavior run that way, suddenly one morning no one can remember being that gullible. I say they are way off. Remember, “The third Reich will last a thousand years”?