Fans of science fiction and science fantasy will recognize the title as that of a remarkable story of future combat written by Joe Haldeman. It’s a prescient story in many ways, arguing that warfare is a common part of Homo Sapien’s makeup, while at the same time it is a vehicle of alienation, inevitably driving the warrior apart from his mother civilization.

The Forever War was Joe Haldeman’s second novel. His first, War Year, was published in 1972, and was a realistic, frankly autobiographical account of its author’s experiences as a combat soldier in Vietnam. These experiences, radically reconfigured, also found their way into The Forever War, which is very much a reflection of the lingering effects of the "seemingly endless" war in Vietnam. Haldeman’s version of that conflict begins in 1996, just one generation after the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. In that year, the combined forces of Earth declare war against an apparently hostile race of aliens known as Taurans. As part of the military response to the Tauran threat, William Mandella, the narrator-hero, is drafted and placed in an elite combat unit composed of the best and brightest members of his own generation.

In order to engage the remote, enigmatic Taurans, Mandella and his cohorts must travel through a series of "collapsars," anomalous gateways in the fabric of quantum space. Passage through these gateways results in a relativistic phenomenon known as "time dilation." By the end of Mandella’s first, bloody campaign (which covers about two years of subjective time), more than 25 years have elapsed on his home planet. He returns to Earth to find himself a stranger in a very strange land, where he knows almost no one and where the patterns of day-to-day life have changed beyond recognition. Unable to cope with these changes, he reenters the barbarous but familiar society of the army, accompanied by his friend, lover, and fellow soldier, Marygay Potter.

Back in uniform, Mandella finds himself trapped, once again, in an endless cycle of violence and temporal displacement. He endures (and barely survives) a series of lethal, faceless encounters with an enemy that no one, least of all the political and military leaders of Earth, can begin to understand. In the resulting chaos, the one constant in Mandella’s life is his relationship with Marygay. Finally, even that is taken away, and he is left with nothing but the prospect of dying for an incomprehensible cause.

If you’ve read the book, and remember it, you understand. If you haven’t read, maybe you should, because we’re going to have our own Forever War.

A few days ago I wrote about our surge escalation within the parameters of a grand scheme of foreign policy. I pointed out the sound of three shoes dropping to announce policy intentions.

A fourth shoe was dropped yesterday.

Pace Says War on Terror Will Require Decades of Effort

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, July 18, 2007 – The war on terrorism is going to last at least another 20 to 30 years, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told American servicemembers based here today.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace is visiting the U.S. Central Command area, and during his stop here he held a town hall meeting with about 600 servicemembers.

In answer to a question, the chairman said the war on terror will last decades, but that doesn’t mean that 25,000 Americans will be based in Afghanistan and 160,000 in Iraq for three decades. “That will be completed in a much shorter timeline,” the chairman said. [emph added]

You see, the demands of “fighting terror” will eventually require American ground troops to leave Iraq and Afghanistan to “bring democracy” to Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.

Forget that nonsense about the Democrats ending this monstrosity and bringing the troops home. That’s not going to be allowed. There’s too much oil to be secured, and too much lebensraum land to be cleared.