Crikey’s mail boxes are under siege by a bombardment of possible
alternatives to George W Bush’s 2001 call to arms for the “War on
Terror.” The Crikey Think Tank packs a bigger punch than the Pentagon’s
penpushers and their paltry “Struggle Against Violent Extremism,” so
here are best contenders for the “War on Terror – Mark II.”

  1. War on Evil
  2. War of Errors
  3. War on Freedom
  4. Our new Vietnam
  5. Tar on the Warriors
  6. Annihilation of Anarchy
  7. Bomb the Bad B*stards
  8. Damning of the Discombobulation
  9. Uncle George’s Middle East Adventure
  10. Campaign to Re-elect the President (CREEP)
  11. War on Anyone Who Disagrees With the USA’s Foreign Policies
  12. The global struggle against the enemies of American Imperialism
  13. The struggle to perpetuate stupidity and paranoia in some world leaders
  14. Ensuring the Economic/Military machine of the US continues to be funded, oh and we need more oil
  15. War On The Killing of Civilians With Roadside/Car/Suicide
    Bombs But Not On Killing Civilians With Aerial or Artillery Bombardment
  16. The ongoing, vaguely defined, continual, enduring,
    establishment of a general feeling of uncertainty and mistrust… with
    terror as a handy fall-back line

And a very creative soul from the Defence Department has sent in the following swag of suggestions – with comments to match:

  • Crusade against evil – uh-oh, the ‘c’ word – can’t use that
  • Operation Restore Hope – hmm – only the winning side would get hope. Maybe not.
  • Fighting against bigotry and bastardy – the bigotry word might get turned around here
  • Restoring Liberty and Freedom – dang, the Gitmo thing may bite them on that one
  • Repairing damage caused by decades of realist foreign policy,
    which resulted in western support of undemocratic regimes – dang, that
    means the US might get blamed for having a hand in this mess
  • Rendering the world free from extremist hate – Oh wait,
    Rendering sounds a lot like Rendition – the US program of flying
    suspects to countries a little hazy on things like human rights
  • Michael Moore is a lying fatty boom boom – er, a bit too specific
  • Changing people’s ideas by invading their countries – The ‘I’
    word is a little strong. How about changing “invading their countries”
    to “enhancing them with foreign military protectors”?
  • Mission Accomplished – oh crud, that’s not right. Who hung that there honestly?
  • They tried to kill my pa. Git ‘im boys – cue banjo duelling
    chase music and pick-up-trucks* with good old boys toting pitchforks
    and automatic weapons

* When the Taliban were on the rise
the Saudi’s quietly arranged the delivery of around 400 Toyota pick-ups
every month. They turned out to be ideal transport/weapon platforms for
use against the Northern Alliance. If it hadn’t have been for that, the
Taliban may still be frothing near the Pakistan border and September 11
might never have happened. Funny that.