Skip to main content

1984 comes 20 years late

I was terrified when Bush declared war, not on a foreign nation, but on a concept: terrorism. How can any nation hope to win a war waged against an idea? “The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous.” (Bonus points for anyone who can tell me from whence the quote comes. It was used to finish Fahrenheit 911, and it is generally attributed to Orwell, but I can't find it in the searchable text of 1984.)

For anyone who argues that there are only two options, fight terrorism or pretend everything will be okay, I offer an alternative expense-sheet for how the money that has already been spent on pre-emptively invading Iraq to find weapons that didn't exist could have been better spent to actually protect Americans.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

send this to your crush without context.

Post a Comment
Read more

dan simmons’ fiction

“I came back for my own purposes,” said the Time Traveler, looking around my booklined study. “I chose you to talk to because it was . . . convenient. And I don’t want you to do a goddamned thing. There’s nothing you can do. But relax . . . we’re not going to be talking about personal things. Such as, say, the year, day, and hour of your death. I don’t even know that sort of trivial information, although I could look it up quickly enough. You can release that white-knuckled grip you have on the edge of your desk.” I tried to relax. “What do you want to talk about?” I said. “The Century War,” said the Time Traveler. I blinked and tried to remember some history. “You mean the Hundred Year War? Fifteenth Century? Fourteenth? Sometime around there. Between . . . France and England? Henry V? Kenneth Branagh? Or was it . . .” “I mean the Century War with Islam,” interrupted the Time Traveler. “Your future. Everyone’s.” He was no longer smiling. Without asking, or offering to pour me any, he
8 comments
Read more