Readers in Council,
The Japan Times,
5-4 Shibaura 4-chome,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023
I feel my neck burning by the recent talk coming out of the Pentagon and the American media about the U.S.administration’s military plans for what is being called a “long war” - presumably against terrorism but, given the nature and record of American behavior, who knows? America has demonstrated a propensity in modern times for going to war without sufficient reason, sufficient legal foundation, or sufficient planning, unctuously relying on its gross power, on its image of itself as some kind of likeable nation pursuing a moral destiny for the benefit of all humankind (that just happens to coincide with its ever-changing definition of its parochial national interests), and then on public relations to cover it all up afterwards like a healing cosmetic lotion sold by the Avon Lady. Lies, stupidity, fantasy, fiction, myth, old fashioned behavioral conditioning: I can only say that tracking modern and current American affairs is Byzantine bizarre. If the American public and foreign citizens don’t buy all that, there is always the threat of direct armed force and the threat of indirect economic force to squeeze at least nominal acquiescence. Plus there is the force of law to limit the range of acceptable opinion and behavior by criminalizing unacceptable ones.
My complaint is that “long war” is yet another in a long line of deliberately evasive and deceptive misnomers. What is meant ought to be reported as “perpetual war.” America is like the Roman Empire with troops perpetually stationed and battling at the empire’s periphery in a centuries-old program of expansion that was sold as self defense. From now it will become a tradition and right of passage in American society to go to “the wars.” Participating in “the wars” will be used as a measure of approval and a ticket for success in life for American people. It stinks.
But I could be wrong.