Keeping the war on terror alive: Robert Parry 'splains it for you

cuz, god forbid, we should ever WIN it...

Just nine days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, George W. Bush defined victory in the “war on terror” as the defeat of al-Qaeda and “every terrorist group of global reach.” But now with almost no debate, the Bush administration has expanded those ambitious goals by adding the elimination of potential “homegrown terrorists.”

In effect, this bait-and-switch definition of “victory” guarantees that the “war on terror” will indeed be endless, striking not just at al-Qaeda and other organized terrorist groups that can operate internationally, but including disaffected youth in the United States and elsewhere who might be inspired by al-Qaeda or some other extremist ideology.

This mission creep was reflected in several recent developments, such as the arrest of seven young black men in Miami for agreeing to collaborate with an FBI agent posing as an al-Qaeda operative and the CIA’s shutting down of a special unit that has been dedicated to tracking al-Qaeda for the past decade.

[...]

Yet, rather than take this declining capability of al-Qaeda to conduct direct attacks on the West as a sign of victory – or as an indication that the 9/11 attacks were a case of lax U.S. defenses letting al-Qaeda get in a lucky punch – the Bush administration has redrawn the parameters of the potential threat.

“We’ve already seen this new face in terrorism in Madrid, London and Toronto,” said FBI Director Robert Mueller in a speech to the City Club in Cleveland. “They were persons who came to view their country as the enemy.”

Mueller’s comments also could have applied to the Miami Seven case, although some critics see it more as an example of the administration manufacturing a “homegrown” threat to justify Bush’s continuation of extraordinary presidential powers and further encroachments on American constitutional rights.

i keep reading comments from progressive bloggers and pundits that claim the bush administration is falling apart and/or is on its last legs... i don't buy that for a second... they're moving steadlily forward, dismantling the u.s. constitution and amassing more power every single day... hamdan vs. rumsfeld hasn't even broken their stride...

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