smartpolitics

AP: “Democrat Barack Obama warned Wednesday about the danger of ‘fighting the last war’ as he pledged to focus on emerging nuclear, biological and cyber threats if elected president.”

Well, there’s an empty promise.

“The last war”? Impossible!

Wars will never completely go away. At least not as long as “war” is still synonymous with “good” in the American vernacular.

Think about it: the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, the War on Terrorism, the War on Hunger, the War on Unemployment, the War on Obesity, the War on Crime, the War on AIDS, the War on Pornography.

Okay, I made up that last one. We all know no one really wants to fight pornography

But the point is, Obama will be anticipating such unknown hazards as “cyber-terrorism,” which, if some extremists become computer hackers, could drain the U.S. Treasury, cause building shut-downs, data-loss, and potentially the release of biological weapons.

That seems rather unlikely as the “best” hackers wind up getting jobs working for the American government, but at least Obama’s trying, unlike McCain who seems to think Iraq is the only area of conflict in the entire world.

Still, there’s no such thing as “the last war” as long as we continue to fight “wars” against anything we don’t like. And besides, “the last war” sounds a teensy bit like the Apocalypse.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS