To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. EDITOR’S LETTER Winning at home and abroad SOMEDAY I LOOK FORWARD TO BORING MY GRANDCHILDREN WITH TALES OF THE SMALL—VERY SMALL—PART I PLAYED IN THE GREAT GWOTOCO WAR. Never heard of the Gwotoco War? Of course you have. We’ve all been in this together since Sept. 11, 2001. Immediately after 9/11 President George Bush declared a Global War on Terror (GWOT). In March, officials in President Barack Obama’s administration changed the designation to Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO). Despite the differences in terminology, they’re still essentially the same conflict, so presumably they should be rendered GWOT/OCO. I say, let’s get rid of the slash and if we can’t agree on a good bureaucratic name for the fight we’re in let’s give it a name that couldn’t possibly be mistaken for anything else in the world: Gwotoco makes as much sense as anything else. I want to thank the framers of these terms for including lots of vowels in their acronyms, even if they’re all o’s. by a non-stop flow of bad tidings since last September. One hopes that it will lead to further successes that will provide a wave of Western success. Almost as important, although less dramatic, was President Barack Obama’s declaration in Turkey that “The United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam.” All this time that should have been self-evident but it was not and stating it clearly and directly should go some distance in kicking out one of the pillars of jihadist propaganda. A third important development is the shift of US effort to Afghanistan in an effort to defeat Al Qaeda and its jihadist allies. The great tragedy of Afghanistan is that the United States and its allies won the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban swiftly, cleanly and cheaply in the first months after the 9/11 attacks. It is true that Osama Bin Laden escaped. However, the jihadist infrastructure was smashed, even Bin Laden had to acknowledge that he had been defeated and his whole ideological edifice had been crushed. Furthermore, the United States accomplished this without making any of the mistakes of the empires who invaded Afghanistan before it. To the many mistakes made in invading Iraq must be added the tragic distraction from the effort against the jihad and Al Qaeda and the resulting long stay in Afghanistan. Now we’re increasing our investment in Afghanistan with hopes of better returns. If we can capture Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri it will provide a psychological boost that will lift the national mood and return badly needed confidence in all sectors of our national life. We can actually win the Gwotoco war. BY DAVID SILVERBERG “CRIMINALS HAVE NO ALTERNATIVE VISION— BUT THEY DO KNOW THAT THEY DON’T LIKE WHAT’S IN PLACE NOW.” and homeland developments into account. We viewed GWOT (now OCO) as the sword and homeland security as the shield. Both are necessary to an effective defense. As we’ve been pointing out in recent issues, we have to add new evildoers to the roster of homeland enemies. In addition to jihadists there are Mexican narco-cartels, maritime pirates, potential domestic terrorists and criminal syndicates whose levels of organization raise them above the category of ordinary street criminals. What’s really going on here? It’s really very simple: It’s the struggle between a global civilization that includes the rule of law and those who would overthrow it. The jihadists would substitute a universal caliphate. Criminals have no alternative vision—but they do know that they don’t like what’s in place now. Homeland security is essential to the preservation of civilization globally and anyone who doubted that we live in a great global civilization had only to look at the G20 summit in April to see its face—or faces. There is a clear consciousness that the civilized world has common interests and common stakes and the forces of anarchy and terrorism threaten every civilized person everywhere. That threat continues. Fortunately so does the effort to defeat it, whether it’s called GWOT or OCO or homeland security.Whatever we call it,we have to win it. HST The differences Speaking seriously, there are real differences between GWOT and OCO. GWOT connoted a sustained, strategic effort for aims of our own choosing. It was all part of smashing the Axis of Evil and ending evil in the world. OCO is essentially a budgetary term that connotes something temporary and involuntary—as well as inconvenient. Perhaps more important are the terms that haven’t changed: Al Qaeda; jihad; terrorism; piracy;man-made hazards. In case anyone has missed it, the conflict with the jihad continues in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa In April we had a singular success when Captain Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama, was rescued and US Navy SEALs killed the three Somali pirates holding him. This was a small incident in the overall war we’ve been waging for eight years but it provided a good psychological boost to a nation—and a world—that’s been battered The role of homeland security So what does Gwotoco have to do with homeland security? Here at Homeland Security Today, we’ve always seen the two as inseparable;one cannot gauge overall security progress without taking both overseas Register online today for exclusive online content and eNewsletters HSToday Magazine | May 2009 3