{"id":9240,"date":"2011-06-01T15:30:17","date_gmt":"2011-06-01T15:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/perpetual-war-is-a-bigger-threat-than-terrorism\/"},"modified":"2011-06-01T15:30:17","modified_gmt":"2011-06-01T15:30:17","slug":"perpetual-war-is-a-bigger-threat-than-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/perpetual-war-is-a-bigger-threat-than-terrorism\/","title":{"rendered":"Perpetual War Is a Bigger Threat Than Terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href='http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2011\/05\/perpetual-war-is-a-bigger-threat-than-terrorism\/239671\/'>Perpetual War Is a Bigger Threat Than Terrorism<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"link_description\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>Our thought process is as follows: terrorism is a threat, and it justifies waging war anywhere on earth where there are terrorists. As we all know, however, it\u2019s impossible to kill every last terrorist. Thus the war on terrorism rolls on. Even if we leave Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, it\u2019ll continue.<\/p>\n<p>Give the hawks their due: terrorism is an ongoing threat to the United States. In fact, it\u2019s likely to pose a bigger threat with every year that passes, insofar as technological advances are permitting people with meager resources to obtain ever deadlier weapons. Heaven forbid they get a nuke or a killer virus. What the hawks fail to recognize, however, is that perpetual war poses <em>a bigger threat<\/em> to the citizenry of a superpower than does terrorism. Already it is <a title=\"Cost of War to the United States | COSTOFWAR.COM\" href=\"http:\/\/costofwar.com\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">helping to bankrupt us financially<\/a>, <a title=\"The Civil Liberties Primary: What Issues Matter Most? - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2011\/04\/the-civil-liberties-primary-what-issues-matter-most\/237920\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">undermining our civil liberties<\/a>, <a title=\"Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">corroding our values<\/a>, triggering <a title=\"What's Worse, Illegally Spying on Americans or Talking About It? - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2011\/05\/whats-worse-illegally-spying-on-americans-or-talking-about-it\/238979\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">abusive prosecutions<\/a>, <a title=\"Confirmed:  Obama authorizes assassination of U.S. citizen - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/news\/opinion\/glenn_greenwald\/2010\/04\/07\/assassinations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">empowering<\/a> the executive branch in ways that are anathema to the system of checks and balances implemented by the Founders, and causing us to <a title=\"Former Miss USA Susie Castillo Cries as She Describes the TSA Patdown as being Sexually Assaulted | Scared Monkeys\" href=\"http:\/\/scaredmonkeys.com\/2011\/04\/27\/former-miss-usa-susie-castillo-cries-as-she-describes-the-tsa-patdown-as-being-sexually-assaulted\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">degrade one another<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Despite a decade without a major terrorist attack, the government continues to claim ever broader powers and to spend billions more in treasure. So what do things look like after another decade? Or after another major terrorist attack? Or when the Oval Office is occupied by someone who wields powers President Obama already claims in an even more abusive fashion?<\/p>\n<p>All the metrics I mentioned are bound to get worse until Americans demand more than improved tactics, or an exit strategy in Iraq or Afghanistan, or the assurance that a leader will do what is necessary to keep us safe. Though terrorism will always threaten us \u2014 as it always has \u2014 the American people should demand an exit strategy in the war on terrorism, and an approach to safeguarding the homeland that isn\u2019t likely to bring about our fiscal ruin, the loss of our liberty, and the corrosion of our morals. Being far more powerful than our enemies, we pose the biggest threat to ourselves.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><em>&ldquo;the American people should demand an exit strategy in the war on terrorism&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Agreed. Next question: &ldquo;HOW?&rdquo; No. Really. How?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perpetual War Is a Bigger Threat Than Terrorism Our thought process is as follows: terrorism is a threat, and it justifies waging war anywhere on earth where there are terrorists. As we all know, however, it\u2019s impossible to kill every last terrorist. Thus the war on terrorism rolls on. Even if we leave Iraq, Afghanistan, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[169],"class_list":["post-9240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-politics","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}