Who exactly are we fighting?

My grandfather's generation had December 7, 1941.  My parents generation had November 22, 1963.

We have September 11, 2001.

I recall that day and how it seemed that everything changed.  I was up and watching the Today show, waiting for my brother and my cousin to pick me up.  We were going to go fishing.

I couldn't change the channel.  When they broke in at first and reported a plane hitting the World Trade Center I thought that it was a 'New York' story.  Sure, a plane hit the tower but how bad could it be?  The news never stopped though.  When they showed video of it and it became apparent just how bad it was.

Just about the time that I got my head around how big of a plane it must have been.... how many people died and how many were now in danger... the other plane hit.  This time they had video and it became immediately obvious;  This was intentional.  This was an attack.

Bastards.  BASTARDS!!

That's how the San Francisco's Examiner put it in their special edition.  BASTARDS!

That's also how I felt.  But my feelings weren't one dimensional.  I was hurt, I was scared, I was angry, I was mournful.  It honestly felt like everything was different.  How could someone attack us like that?  Did this mean that we were at war?  And as the news continued... the Pentagon, evacuating the Capital, putting attack aircraft in the skies, the plane crashing in Pennsylvania, the President somewhere unknown on Air Force One... I kept wondering when it would stop.  Were there going to be more planes used as weapons?  Were we going to shoot passenger airlines down?  Were there going to be more traditional suicide bombings?

The aftermath of that day is almost more disconcerting.  Yes, the attacks stopped, but we were going to go to war.  Or at least the closest that our modern times allow for war.  Congress voted to give the President unprecedented powers to go after those who dared attack our beautiful nation.  At the time I was completely behind it.  Damn Right!  Go Get Em!  Wipe Them Off The Face Of This Earth!

But there's the rub.  There's the problem.  Who were we fighting?  Sure, we invaded Afghanistan, but we were fighting them only because they were harboring those we believed to be responsible.  How exactly do you defeat a terrorist organization.  It's not like anybody believed that there would be a peaceful signing of a treaty aboard a battle ship or in some anonymous conference room.

To this day we're still technically fighting that 'War'.  13 years.  We beat the UK in less time in the Revolutionary war.  We beat them again in less time in the war of 1812.  We beat 'the south' in less time during the Civil War.  We beat the Germans twice in less time during the World Wars.  We stopped fighting in Korea and Vietnam in less time.

But we haven't beaten 'them' in 13 years.

I listened to an episode of Radio Lab recently called "60 Words".   The episode covers the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that congress gave the president after 9/11.  That episode put into focus so much of what I've been feeling about this 'War' in recent years.  The gist of it is that the AUMF gave the president the authorization to use whatever force is needed to go after "those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States".  That authorization has let us go to war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somlia, Yemen and many other places.

But we're only fighting "those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States" right?  Well.... no.  We're fighting Al Qaeda who are directly responsible, but we're also fighting any organisation that is aligned with them.  It's even being used as the legal reasoning that we can go in and fight ISIL in Iraq and Syria.

Let's be clear.  ISIL is bad.  VERY bad.  But what have they done against us?  Did THEY attack us on 9/11?  If not, then why are using the authorization to go after those who are responsible to go after them?  It's just another open ended, no possible way to 'win' or 'end' war that we're participating in.

In the Radio Podcast they had a militry representative say that this operation would more than likely take 20 to 30 years.   That's in ADDITION to what we've already done.  43 fucking years of war?

After 9/11 I wanted Revenge, and that was wrong.  I also wanted Justice, and I believe that that was right.  But what we're doing now and in the foreseeable future is neither Revenge nor is it Justice.  It's just War for War's sake.  I'm not saying that we should do nothing about ISIL.  But what we should do is make a case for fighting them, make definable goals, have Congress and other interested nations (NATO, the UN, the Arab League...) step in and agree to fight them, and most of all have an end point.  Define here and now how we'll STOP fighting.

I want the country that I had on September 10, 2001 back.  And so long as we're going to fight 'Terrorism' I'll never have that country back.