Enduring Freedom Or Enduring War?: Prospects and Costs of the New American 21st Century

The real questions raised by George W. Bush s Operation Enduring Freedom is freedom for whom? And freedom at what costs? These costs have to include both material and human or cultural costs. This study shows that many peoples and nations of the world will have to endure war while Americans pursue freedom of markets and freedom to exploit natural resources. In what Attorney General John Ashcroft calls fantasies of lost liberties, the war on terror has eroded constitutional principles and democratic rights Americans once took for granted.

This book includes firsthand reporting from the front lines and refugee camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It connects the war on terrorism to neoliberal globalism in a way that shows that the only enduring freedom likely to emerge from this war is a greater freedom for western corporations to exploit the people and natural resources of the developing world. It places the current war in the context of long-standing U.S. military and foreign policies that are now being directed at Central Asia and the natural resources (oil) located there. Finally, this book presents an analysis of so-called Islamic fundamentalism that is based on statements by Muslims themselves and not the self-interested scare stories of books and journalism written by propagandists for the Bush regime.

The Appendix includes an indispensable collection of important Bush Administration policy statement and speeches along with their precedents in the neo-con movement. Included are excerpts from the 1993 Defense Strategy for the 1990s written by then Sec. of Defense Dick Cheney and his assistant, Paul Wolfowitz. And Bush s 2002 National Security Strategy of the US. These are essential for anyone seeking to understand this war, which we are told, will last for several generations.