Our Children's Children's War
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If you expect the War on Terror to end with the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, or with the establishment of a stable government in Afghanistan, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise. While the eyes of the world focus on those conflicts, the U.S. military is fighting an unconventional war that could last generations.
Widely known as the "War on Terror," the outgoing commander of the U.S. military's Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, refers to it as "The Long War." Ted Koppel presents an in-depth special report on a war that may last longer than any in which the U.S. has been involved before.
U.S. military officials point out that al-Qaeda and other terror organizations are not thinking in terms of a campaign that will end in five, 10 or even 20 years. Instead, they are looking as far as 100 years into the future, and the U.S. has no choice but to do the same. In this special report, Koppel explores the challenges the prolonged struggle presents and how America's military is trying to adapt. His interview with Gen. Abizaid is featured throughout the broadcast.
Koppel and his team of producers take viewers to Afghanistan, where the American military is fighting an increasingly powerful Taliban; to Djibouti, where the U.S. is building schools and digging wells; to Ethiopia, where the U.S. is training commandos while the war in next-door Somalia rages; and to North Carolina, where private military firm Blackwater USA is training military and civilian personnel for life on the front lines.
In Ted's Words
The third chapter in this trilogy is something that the Pentagon calls "The Long War." And what they're really referring to is the battle against terrorism, which many of the leaders in the Pentagon now perceive as being an endless battle — one that may go on for 20 years, 30 years or more.
So they have begun to preach the gospel that we have to adapt to this notion that we are in a permanent state of war, and that what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and Somalia and certain other parts of the world right now and the way that we are fighting this, this war, requires a certain level of adaptation and we have to adapt to these new realities.
So the 9/11 show and how it's changed America, Iran and the influence that it's exerting throughout the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, and the Long War, those are all, in a sense, three chapters of the same story.
