Insecure Security

"What a difference a year makes! Last summer, top level government officials , policy experts, industry leaders and nationally noted national security reporters gathered at the third annual Aspen Security forum to consider the question of whether the war on terror was finally over. At that point, bin Laden was dead and gone and untold numbers of would be rivals and foot soldiers were either dead themselves or on the run, core al Qaeda seemed all but irrelevant. Policy makers and pundits were beginning to dig out and dust off their old play-books, pondering anew traditional national security threats from perennial nation-state antagonists like Iran and North Korea; scratching their heads and pulling their chins over the muddle of the Arab Spring, all the while keeping an eye on China's economic, political and military rise and it's implications for America's continued geopolitical primacy"

Holy war, what a way to flippantly discuss the security of the free world! And this is just the first paragraph, the damn thing goes on for a few pages of excruciating reading. This ad disturbed me for multiple reasons.

A. It's a security forum, so naturally not everyone is invited. Why in the hell is there an 3-page ad?

B. I don't care if it makes me sound like a language snob: Coming from people who are involved in literally billions of dollars in expenditure with the government, there are multiple grammatical genocides in this ad. (nationally noted national security reporters? I don't think the national security reporter, let's call him Lester Colvin, in po-dunk Kirksville, WV is going to be invited, guys! No invite for Lester!)

C. The War on Terror.. why have they not come up with a new term? It's so amazingly broad, you could apply it to anything that you personally find terrorizes you: vampires, getting your throat slashed, midgets, long lines at el banco, movies by John Carpenter (he must be stopped, his reign of terror must end! Oh, wait, it did, around 1992)

D. It absolutely reeks of desperation. Playbooks?! Iraq and Afghanistan are wrapping up and Obama is (sort of) trying to cut military spending and all of the sudden we have to somehow renew those contracts for the Harriers & Patriot missiles we never even used on Iraqi school children..

It's partly what they're saying, it's partly how they are saying it. They are talking down to everyone in this ridiculous garbage. Dismissing past threats as old news and discussing security focusing mainly on the dollars and cents and not even mentioning the millions, if not billions, of lives the war has cost this planet while it has financially benefited very select few persons, is irresponsible and unbelievably insulting.

They've oddly made this ad unavailable on their official website, but I found a copy someone downloaded before it was taken down or broke or whatever. You can also check out Aspen Security Forum's shitty site here.