Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to De-constructing the sound byte "War on Terror"

re: De-constructing the sound byte "War on Terror"
Robert — (archived)

Lindy, I can't follow you into many of the places you went in that post, but I'd agree that the simplicistic slogan "war on terror" is another empty phrase--and perhaps a deliberate misdirection--that impedes understanding who the enemy actually is.

The key problem is that it describes a war on an intangible, like the War on Drugs, War on Poverty, War on Illiteracy, ad nauseum. It's hard to define victory against an intangible, and hard to achieve victory even if you can define it, because intangibles morph and flow like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. The intangible is an idea that can be endlessly copied; it's not a scarce vital war materiel you can destroy or choke off to achieve victory. You'll never find it in your crosshairs.

See, "terrorism" is, at the end of the day, just a strategy, and it's not the strategy we need to (or can) stamp out, we have to win against the people using the strategy. Using the same logic, we might call World War II "The War Against Mechanized Warfare"...but then how would we have identified the enemy and found the battelfield? And did we win The War Against Mechnized Warfare? Heck no, mechanized warfare has advanced beyond the worst nightmares of anybody in WWII. But we did beat the people who tried to use mechanized warfare against us. Big difference.

If we can't even properly name the enemy, how can we define victory against him? And if we can't define victory, how can we make plans to achieve it?

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (82 posts)