The Indiana Barrister asks an appropriate question for today, September 11, 2007; six years after al-Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center towers:
We all know what today is and what it means so I won’t spend a lot of time talking about it. What I will ask is what is your assessment of the war on terror?
My opinion is that it’s ridiculous to purport to have a War on an emotion (terror) or on a tactic (terrorism). It’s like having a war on hate or a war on flanking maneuvers. This isn’t just hairsplitting. The metaphors we use influence the decisions we make. I think it was Marconi who had so much trouble figuring out a good way to use radio because he thought of it as a wireless telegraph. It’s a good thing we abandoned the “Information Superhighway” metaphor. We should have given up on the “War on Terror(ism/ists)” metaphor long ago. If your war isn’t against a concrete object, you won’t win. I think the Jews recognized this when they put the “no graven images” requirement into the commandments — with no physical manifestation, their God could never be destroyed. Similarly, terror is an abstraction and can never be destroyed — hence, such a war can’t be “won.”
A War on al-Qaeda could be won. A War on the nation-states from whence the terrorists came (Saudi Arabia & Egypt, primarily) could be won. A War on those who finance al-Qaeda could be won. But, to purport to have a “war” on terror or terrorism is as foolish as having a “war” on poverty.
That’s my assessment.
But that is so hard to sound-byte! It would get cut to “War on the nation-states”, and it isn’t like Bush needs the help with screwing up the message.
Seriously, what is the quick CNN style term for the correct way to fight those that try to harm us? As much as it sounds like a joke, it is a hard thing to figure out…
Islamofacism, if you want a brief label.
“Islamofacism” – That term just seemed ginned up to be a scary way of describing militant conservative Muslim religion. The “Islam” half of the word obviously makes sense, but how bin Laden, et al are supposed to be adherents of fascism is not at all clear to me.
“We just know Hitler was a fascist, and it’s an effective epithet, so we’ll just tie it on to “Islam” and make a boogey man out of these folks.” That’s how it strikes me, anyway. If someone knows why it couldn’t just as well be “Islamoconservatives,” let me know.
“Religious zealots” seems to work also. Or, perhaps “Anti-american zealots.” The zealotry is clear, but the “religious” angle seems more of a pretext than an actual reason.
Doug, I used your post as part of my 9/11 edition of the Blog World Report.
Thanks Robert.