Who is America at war with? Sorry, that's classified

[Permalink]

1 Like

Why bother with classifying this information? It’s obvious: we have always been at war with Eastasia.

15 Likes

Many of them should be here: forbiddensymbols.com

1 Like

itself

8 Likes

So we can’t tell anybody else who we’re fighting because we don’t want the people we’re fighting to know that we know we’re fighting them?

Because that might give them an ego boost or something?

Is ‘not self aware enough to appreciate irony’ something I should put on my resume’ if I apply for a job at the Pentagon now?

4 Likes

It’s not that the statement: “this would negatively affect national security” is necessarily false. The truly ridiculous bottom of this is the treatment of “national security” as the highest, absolute value. All follows from that: Interests of national security trump free speech, transparency, rule of law, habeas corpus, anything.

But this view is clearly wrong and plain silly for a long list of reasons. What is America even fighting for if they’re willing to sacrifice basic principles of a democratic society? This gives me a strong impression that the terrorists have been clearly winning all along, not least because their target does not even understand what the ultimate goal of a terrorist campaign is. (Hint: it’s not death toll or property damage.)

16 Likes

That’s kind of what I was thinking. (In an non-humorous sense.) Meaning that you’d track the activities of a group or individual who (wrongly) believe themselves to be operating in secret until you can upset a bigger plot, catch a bigger fish in the enemy hierarchy, etc.

Or maybe the secrecy is just a sign that we really are in a war against the aliens.

3 Likes

And the best part is they can always correct it later on. Eastasia, you rabble rouser. We have always been at war with Eastasia.

3 Likes

Yeah, I’m with you.

It’s not so much that the ‘terrorists are winning’ as it is that our government is treating them like a tool for implementing policy rather than actually trying to communicate or solve problems or anything like that.

If you look at it with less context it’s actually really childish behavior, isn’t it?

3 Likes

Sometimes I need to spin it humorously just to keep my brain from seizing up when I read some of these things. There are just layers of fundamental flaws on top of other layers of fundamental flaws.

It’s really sad because we’re SO easily distracted and entertained as a species. There’s no really plausible reason to be blowing other people’s things up, much less actual other people (though some people really do come up with some weird stretches of ‘plausible’ to try to justify such things).

I blame Dunbar’s number here as much as anything. We’re not designed to care about more than a tiny number of other humans, just knowing all these other people exist causes some amazingly irrational behavior. Our government just was designed before we had a good enough understanding of how our brains really work for it to be effective on this scale.

4 Likes

I would argue that they are winning indeed, as the damage to democratic institutions and ideals was their primary intention.

We push America, America will overreact, externally jumping into unpopular conflicts, completely alienating the entire Islamic world (I’m oversimplifying a bit) and spending the goodwill it has among its allies, and internally turning into an elected dictatorship and surveillance state, completely discrediting the whole western ideal of a liberal democracy and unmasking it as inherently rotten.

Mission accomplished.

(I’m not claiming any individual organizer had this exact plan on his mind, nor that anyone could foresee all these consequences. But as far as the broad outline is concerned, it’s the lasting damage to the fabric of society that counts, and there has been plenty of that.)

6 Likes

And were that true I’d agree wholeheartedly!

But really, all ‘terrorists’ are ‘humans’. They’re attempting to create political change but the military they’re opposed by is so overwhelming that they resort to attacking ‘softer’ targets. And they rarely think they’re attacking something, rather they think they’re defending their families/communities/people. Very often there are clear goals, most often announced. The impression given to us in the mainstream media isn’t terribly representative of their motivations.

And when it comes to securing safe, stable, happy lives and just being left alone to find their own futures, I think we can safely say that ‘they’ are failing in a general sense just as much as ‘we’ are.

5 Likes

Right. The main reasons I got so much into the whole US v. THEM frame of mind is my pure anger at “our” (as in “western society”) own failings. Certainly, we are all human and non of us can ultimately be too happy about the current state of affairs, vis-a-vis the “war on terror.”

Still, as far as the pure utilitarian effect of 9/11 is concerned, I still can’t believe the American governments have been essentially playing into the perpetrators hands.

3 Likes

We could tell you why we don’t think the U.S. Constitution is worth the paper it’s written on, but then we’d have to torture, beat, harass, dismiss, subvert, humiliate, pepper spray, misrepresent, deceive, rob, prosecute, jail, ruin or maybe just kill you.

4 Likes

Very well said.

The really sad thing is in the end this whole political terrorism game gravitates the least reasonable people into positions of power and authority, spawning more chaos.

It’s like a freaking virus, except we can kill it in a moment by just saying ‘no, I’d rather just hang with my friends and maybe love somebody and have some fun’

We need everybody to have that option, don’t we? :slight_smile:

3 Likes

If you deal with these groups its against the law and you would be charged

of course you don’t know which group is which , because its Classified

why don’t they classify the speed limit and where parking is illegal ?

5 Likes

Isn’t the state of being “at war” something that requires a Declaration of War? Isn’t that an International Law?

3 Likes

If so, millions would be incarcerated or worse with the War on Illiteracy.

2 Likes

I do wonder if the US is secretly at war with any of its official allies. Drone strike in Pakistan? No worries: secretly at war with the “Government of Pakistan”.

1 Like

We have always been at war with [REDACTED]

3 Likes