Talk Amongst Yourselves: "The War On Terror"

Junked in favor of what?

Junked in favor of what?

An ad-hoc, evolving policy of fucking with people who want to fuck with us, maybe? Or basically, what we did before we decided that "9/11 changed everything."

The United States should declare War on inappropriate War metaphors. Over time, the word war has gone from a specific action, something one state does to another state, to a general metaphor for 'the focal point of our national attention needs to be on this concept'. Johnson's War on Poverty thus became Nixon's War on Drugs, establishing the possibility of a War on Concept and thus setting the stage for the current War on Terrorism.

The problem is, the War on Concept is no longer understood to be a metaphor - the War on Terrorism, unlike the War on Drugs, it hailed as an actual literal war granting the government with actual literal rights. Part of the deal with a literal war is that yes, a declaration of war augments the power of the federal government and the executive branch in particular. But that augmentation is safe for a democracy because it is understood that it is a temporary status that will end at a definate time - when the two states sign a peace treaty. You can't sign a peace treaty with a concept. Thus, the War on Terrorism will never actually end - and by extension, the expansion of executive powers will never end.

Terrorism will never go away. We need to figure out what powers are necessary for executive for the protection of Americans, not for a war against terrorism, but rather for an era in which terrorism will be a perpetual threat.

It has to be junked, in favor of having an actual policy. The whole "war on x" thing is very peculiar to America, but sometimes it works because the issue in question lends itself to the metaphor (clearly definable goals amenable to strategic and tactical planning, etc.), and war really does focus the imagination and will of Americans. But when the "x" is something that is not appropriate (drugs, poverty, terrorism), it does way more harm than good. It still focuses the attention, but it makes policymakers want to do all sorts of crazy warlike things that make the problem worse.

The problems of drugs, poverty, and terrorism are perpetual and need to be perpetually managed. With the war metaphor, you can only do that by having a perpetual state of war, which then ceases to focus the imagination and will.

Of course, if your desire to reshape the world is actually helped along by having a perpetual state of war...

To me, that sounds like a good way to get another 9/11, SCMT. Do what we were doing before 9/11; turn back the clock; forget what happened; etc. I'd like to think we would learn from our mistakes, rather than repeating them.

Dan: what about the Chilly Temperature War?

The War on Terror is unwinnable. We can be right 99 times out of 100, but the one time we're wrong, we suffer a devastating loss. Too vague to mean anything.

How about, "Campaign against al-Qaeda".

how important is it to junk/replace the "war on terror" language?

Your answer is probably going to vary with how important you think "framing" is in general.

I think there is *some* truth to the "framing" issue. But I also think that for liberals to get cutesy with figuring out the best 'frame' is more often than not a complete waste of time.

So, I'm with the people above who advocate improving *policies*, and letting the *names* take care of themselves.

(Put differently: what's wrong with the "war on terror" is that it's the name for a stupid policy, not that it's a stupid name for the right policy. Get the policy right, and the new name will probably emerge on its own.)

Whether you call it a "war" or not is an inherently political issue. People who advocate for more presidential power can argue, for example, that it's justified because we're on this permanent "wartime" footing.

Whether a bunch of Smart People conclude that it's unhelpful to call it a war is beside the point. Lots of things we've done since 9/11 have been unhelpful as far as combatting terrorism. But as long as they serve a political end, we're going to keep on doing those things, or at least some of us are.

I produced a rather lengthy comment on this topic when Anne-Marie Slaughter raised it at America Abroad back in August.

Thinking more about it, I think I like "Era of Terrorism" as a term for the Democratic party. It communicates several important concepts:

1) That the Democrats are taking the threat of terrorism seriously;
2) That the Democrats, unlike the Republicans, acknowledge that whatever changes to our government have to happen are going to become permanent features of the government;
3) That the Democrats, unlike the Republicans, are not going to tell the American people the obvious lie that one day, the threat of terrorism will magically go away;
4) That the Democrats, unlike the Republicans, recognize that terrorism is not the singular goal of this era (as it was during say World War II) but rather is the defining feature of this era. The cental platform of the Democratic party then becomes: how do we express the values of America, such as liberty, equality, and rule of law, in the context of an era of terrorism - just as a previous generation had to ask how to express those principles in the cold war era.

What Dan said.

Plus, to Al: again with the lame "cold war" come back? Once again, it was not "The War on Cold" Just as the "6-day war" was not a war against the says Sunday through Friday. Those are descriptive terms, y'know, adjectives. It does you and your side a disservice to argue in this way.

Those are descriptive terms

As is "on terror". The difference between "on terror" and "cold" or "world II" is that the former actually is more (perhaps too) descriptive; nobody would be complaining if we just called this "war #43".

But let me add, I didn't take Matthew's post to be another "what's a better term for this war than 'on terror'?" post. I took it as another "why are we calling this a war at all?" post.

Here is the problem: Once one accepts the metaphor of a ‘war on terror’, one accepts a framework of analysis which is different in degree and not in kind from notions that we are involved in ‘World War Four’ or a struggle against a unified Fascist enemy which includes both states and stateless actors, etc. I think one of the main accusations that one could make against mainstream liberals who supported the Iraq War (TNR, Friedman, Berman, Packer, etc) is that their unthinking messianism prepared the way for a situation where it is almost impossible to differentiate between a nuanced view of a war on terror from the lunacies of the Right (As cold war liberals helped prepared the way for McCartyism). Of course, one can take time to analytically separate the proper notion of a war on terror from improper notions, but once one engages that project one has lost the argument, at least as it would be played out in our actually existing media. The problem is the framework as a whole. The goal of progressives should be to lessen the general paranoia and fear that pervades the body politic, not give in to it, while also espousing realistic assessments of the actual threats existent.

The chief reason we should abandon the "war" on terror is that war is the suspension of ordinary morality. It's a state of crisis. We do things in war that we don't do in peace, and we forgive ourselves because it is, after all, war. In a "war on terror", since there is no single enemy but a notion, an idea, we will be in a state that will never end. We cannot live in a world in which morality has been suspended. It just can't be done. Our leaders will become monsters, far too quickly, and our hyper-technology will do the rest.

How about "War on Loser Fundamentalists"?

Actually, I don't think much of framing. I do think it would be really useful if the general public developed some basic knowledge of geography, history, and these terrorist organizations. I have little confidence that will ever happen. I am more depressed that the commentariat and elits don't know much more. How connected are Al Qaeda, other Wahabists (sp?), Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian Government? Basically, the only answer you seem to get depends on how pro-panic a person is.

It has been said a million times, but I will say it again: terror is a tactic.

We're operating at a competent tactical level in the global war on terror. Operationally, we score well. Strategically, we are up a creek sans paddle sans boat and the guy leading the way is mentally impaired by something deep and dark within him.

Yes, junk the rubric. If for only this reason, it is the highest form of stupidity to group enemies into a single mode. We should attempt to divide them. We should have pursued this from the word go. Instead, we moved into a secular region to topple a secular dictator and left insufficient forces to attack the Taleban until its deserved conclusion. This has left a serious problem in our rear flank -- which is generally a bad thing in matters military.

Don't think for a second that our general staff is pleased with this. Don't think for a second that they are not rethinking a tremendous amount of assumptions.

Do you think the Iranians would use their diplomatic hocus pocus to build a bomb were Saddam on his throne?

Do you think the Pakistanis would be playing as loose and fast with the Taleban were 100,000 American GIs hiking along the border and building roads?

The grouping of secular Baathists into the war on terror, which continues, enhances the prestige of the terrorists. It gives them money, recruits and a new playing field to wield their evils.

This is some of the worst strategic thinking in recent Western history.

Sure, it's just a bunch of words, and by all means it would be lovely if we could junk it along with everything it signifies. But there's a long distance between deciding to junk it and actually junking it, and as long as one political party or the other thinks it can accrue more power by using the term (i.e., as long as a whole bunch of voters with only the most superficial understanding of the issues can be persuaded to support demagogic politicians and their incredibly misguided policies every time you utter the phrase), we are stuck with it.

Al: "War #43" . . . hmm . . . close, but not quite. I've got it! How about "43's War"?

If, in fact, terrorism is a tactic used by relatively powerless forces (as opposed to "state-sponsored" terrorism) against the powerful, then fighting a "war on terrorism" makes about as much sense as fighting a "war on frontal assaults" or a "war on artillary barrages" or a "war on spying."

And, another thing. Can anyone seriously argue that the United States wasn't overtly supporting terrorism when supporting the Contras in Nicaragua a couple of decades back? Under today's rules, wouldn't the Sandinistas ahve been perfectly justified in capturing, say, Eliot Abrams, putting him in a Nicaraguan gulag, taking away most of his right and torturing him until he admitted he received orders from the guy in the Oval Office after whom our airport in Washington DC is named?

We could junk it if we wanted to. The right has junked all kinds of terms; heck, they've managed to junk the term "liberal" itself. It would just take a broad consensus among all (or nearly all) figures on the left that "war on terror" is a silly concept, and the commitment to mock anybody that used the term, saying, "There you go again, Rambo" or words to that effect and shaking our heads in a rueful manner. To act as if anybody that uses that phrase is some kind of delusional madman, who can't be trusted to run a Cub Scout troop, let alone the nation. And we'd have to stick with it in the face of initial resistance, but it's doable.

The war in Afghanistan is no longer a "war on terror." It is now a traditional guerilla war against an informally organized opposition whose goals are (1) to conquer and hold territory where they can and (2) to drive out an occupying army and (3) to overthrow a regime imposed by the occupiers and their domestic allies and (4) eventually to establish a new regime over the national territory. This is like Vietnam or Algeria or any number of other wars - like the Afghanistan-Soviet war, come to think of it- and none of them were called wars on terror. Although there is some terror in Afghanistan (e.g. car bombs) most of what is going on involves pitched battles of hundreds of guerilla fighters against NATO armed forces.

You can argue that the war is a "war on terror" because we are fighting to make sure that Afghanistan does not become a haven for the terrorists who are responsible for 9/11. But that argument loses its force when we recognize that those very terrorists are living and working in Pakistan and we are doing nothing to capture them there.

I would like to see it written and pronounced (with finger quotes) as "the" "war" "on" "terror", if anyone - particularly strategy-makers - is going to use it at all. If that's not possible, then time to say buh-bye outright. What Beinart and others need to figure out is that it just isn't a strategic concept, it's a marketing campaign. It is not a useful tool for analysis or critical thought. It has lured smart people into strategic traps (the Iraq War, yes, but also the tendency - mentioned by commenters above - to assemble every group we don't like in the Middle East into a superenemy, an Islamofascist Voltron). It's dangerous, stupid, and inimical to American interests, so I say junk it.

From now on, no more wars with abstractions, ideologies, statistical tendencies, or regional instabilities. Just to start. Soon, we can work on cutting down on whack-a-mole interventions. Ultimately, maybe we can get it through our heads that "the savage wars of peace" isn't a term of approbation, and that if you find yourself in a whole bunch of said savage wars at the same time, maybe the problem isn't solely caused by all those crazy folk with funny last names that you're fighting. At the very least, maybe they *really like* fighting and killing Americans, so perhaps setting up Jihad Training Camps with real live American soldiers in their countries isn't going to work out very well?

I'm not going to figure out how to win "the" "war" "on" "terror", but I don't think the answer is going to be found in the Brezhnev Soviet Union's playbook. In general, I'd like to see less of America losing its soul, and more of that shining city on a hill stuff.

The phrasing has precedent with the war on poverty and the war on drugs. GWB's implementation is similar but less effective than the latter.
The main actual policy argument, I believe, is what the balance between law enforcement and military action should be. Personally, I think elevating the Al Quaeda to our level has been a strategic mistake. Rather than treating them as capable of waging WW3 on us, we should have treated them as common criminals. Americans would be safer in the long run.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think it's way past time to go beyond comparing TWOT to the War on Drugs (which, do not get me wrong, has been a tragic failure and a moral disaster.) If present trends continue for 10 years, it will be more like "we are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia."

Beinart-esque liberals need to realize that by endorsing the TWOT concept, they legimitize the idea that presidents can declare an open-ended (endless?) war on an open-ended set of enemies. I'm sure that Beinart's book is larded with the appropriate bromides, but really.

At some point this country is going to have to seriously think about Moslem/Arab grievances. No, this doesn't mean that what they do is justifie; it doesn't mean surrendering to all of their demands. |It means what it says...thinking about the nature of their grievances, understanding some of what will abate these grievances, and yes, talking to some of these people.

The "war on terrorism" should be junked as any war on broad concepts. You go to war against ennemies, not against concepts. The "war on terrorism" is just a yet another "forever war" frame, after the Red Scare, the East Asia dominos. It's a perpetual state of emergency, a distraction to scare the populace, oh so convenient for dishonest leaders.

The US of A are not at war with every terrorist under the Sun but with Al Qaeda and its "jihadist" followers. That's already a lot of people and a few countries (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) and this war is in its own right a tough one to win, one that requires a lot of brains in addition to force. No need to dilute it in a vague concept. It's about winning, not about scaring the crap out of the country.

So Dems, repeat after me :
- "We must fight the war on Al Qaeda"
- "The incompetence and the dishonesty of GW Bush and the Republican are undermining our war on Al Qaeda"
- "The war on Al Qaeda must be our top priority on national security"

"The war on Al Qaeda". Got it ? Not the forever "war on terror". "The war on Al Qaeda".

"War on Terror" makes it seem as if the enemy could be anywhere and everywhere, in the shadows, behind that closed door over there, under the bed.

"War on the people who committed the 9/11 attack" means a struggle against at most a few thousand people. Al Qaeda is a threat, but it's not the Soviet Union in 1970 or Germany in 1942.

But then, a War on Al Qaeda wouldn't justify the Bush Admin's power grab, would it?

A related question is "Why are Americans so afraid? Why do we want to feel fear?" A lot of people seem to gravitate towards the fearful crouch, and will themselves into seeing Bush as War Supremo, Great Leader, not to be confined by checks and balances. There must be some pleasure or relief to be derived from this, but I've never seen it.

Soon after 9/11, when Rice, Rumsfeld and others said that the war would take decades, generations, to win, I thought "Why on earth should that be?" It's a bit like Gen. McLellan facing the Confederacy, with his case of what Lincoln called The Slows. But this time it's coming from the White House.

Arguing over semantics is pointless. The "war on terror" frame is locked in. There is nothing we are going to do to convince the public and the media and certainly not the neocons that control the government that we are not in a "war on terror." What we have to do is redefine the "war on terror" to mean doing things that actually protect us against terrorism such as capturing/killing Osama bin Laden, inspecting cargo containers, getting reliable information from captured terror suspects instead of extracting confessions we want to hear via torture, etc. instead of meaning attacking countries that have been on the neocon hit list for decades like it means now.

How do you "junk it", or inject any more sophisticated approaches, when the ruling party demagogues it to maintain themselves in power?

You can't take out TWOT altogether -- even the administration tried and failed (their brief experiment with Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism). Like the War on Drugs, it needs to just fade away into an acceptable level of "business as usual" -- where by acceptable I mean: no Presidential rule-by-decree, "we're at war dammit" semi-elective dictatorship.

I agree with several commenters above that we should be pushing key initiatives "of TWOT" (eg. get al Qaeda, port security, more human intelligence gathering from agents in country, more language skills, etc.,etc) which will help to redirect the bureaucratic inertia back from the "all war, all the time" militarism of the Bush crowd.

The problem is understood within the government as one of "asymmetric threats". The trouble has been that the big depts of the Executive branch have missions that don't let them focus on this problem effectively. Richard Clarke was living this problem in bureaucracy with well-intentioned but necessarily limited assistance from Clinton followed by uncomprehending, if not out right hostile, sabotage from Bush's team.

Even Rumsfeld at times has had glimmerings of understanding -- the "revolution in military affairs" to which he has been sympathetic is all about shifting investment into light-weight, agile forces capable of engaging enemies like al Qaeda and away from the heavy armored divisions which are more entrenched in the Army culture. The machismo about invading Iraq with "too few" troops was indirectly inspired by this desire to prove we don't need such heavy forces. The success of the "low numbers" invasion only proved the correctness of the new doctrine to Rummy. Unfortunately this was not matched by an understanding of how to "drain the swamp" once eminent domain was exercised against the bad guy landlord Saddam. The revolution in military affairs handbook seems to have been written without a chapter on occupations or nation building.

Of course the whole concept of the "war on terrorism" should be junked. It's an excuse for leaving the U.S. on a war footing until the enemy--"terrorism"--is defeated. That means forever, to the detriment of our traditional values and liberties. Our political leadership is already taking us to darker places than we visted when fighting the Nazis or Imperial Japan.

How about fighting our wars (besides as rarely as possible) against concrete enemies? Al Queda is concrete enough for me.

I don't understand bob h :

" How do you "junk it", or inject any more sophisticated approaches, when the ruling party demagogues it to maintain themselves in power? "

Well, that's the whole point. There hasn't been any meaningful debate with the Republicans for 5 years. There is litteraly no one to speak with. The phone is ringing in an empty room. So, why should the Dems adopt this Republican language ? Why pretend to use a common language ?

Rule #1 of politics : never let anyone else define you.

The Warhhh on Terrahhh is a formidable tool for the Republicans:
- It's a forever war that helps justify anything and everything, including junking the habeas corpus (I'm still floored that that one just flew by with barely a sqweak).
- The ennemy is nameless, faceless so there is no pressure to deliver anything, no goal to achieve. And sure enough, Osama Bin Laden and Zahawiri are still walking this Earth when they belong to an unmarked shallow grave.

By using this darn term, the Democrats validate it and let themselves defined. The Democrats must redefine the term, the very language of the debate and break this Republican toy. It's not going to change the public discourse overnight but those things work themselves in the collective psyche by repetition and repetition and repetition. But one thing is certain, nothing is going to happen if the Democrats don't do anything.

You need to start one day, like Cato the Elder repeating at every opportunity for nearly 8 years :

"Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam."

He never saw Carthage destroyed. He died as the 3rd Punic War started but 3 years later, there was nothing left of Carthage. Nothing. Not even a wall.

It's probably too late for this election cycle (the Dems are going to loose anyway) but they need to ban those "War on Terror" words from their mouth.

America has one ennemy, Al Qaeda.
America must win the War On Al Qaeda.

I hope I'm not repeating too many people when I say that the War on Terror is one of the most brilliant manuevers ever pulled by a power-hungry politician, in that without anything even faintly similar to a real war, Mr. Bush managed to con the country into giving him War Powers, which he then used to create a real war and mismanage it badly enough to leave him a War President throughout his time in office. All based on what is basically simply a rhetorical device. I can't say I like the result but I have to admire the pure unadulterated chutzpah the ruling cabal has shown in pulling this off and nobody calling Bullshit on them (until now).

There is no war on al Qaeda. It is just a police and intelligence matter. Those claiming it is a war are blindly fearful or have other agendas to push. There is no war on al Qaeda or terror.

Or we would have troops in Pakistan.

...is neither a "war" nor "on terror"

Junk it. It's like declaring a "war on blitzes" when Shawn Merriman ends Tom Brady's season on a surprise blitz. Overreaction. If anything, based upon 9-11, there's a war against Al Qaeda, that's it. Everything else is diplomacy and strategy, until we again find ourselves with an avowed enemy actually striking out at us. Overreaction leads to overextension and thus weakness. Instead, focus and clarity should always be maintained, so that those who do decide to become our enemies know that we will singularly target and devastate them should they threaten or aggress upon us. If we had wholly remained focused on Al Qaeda and Bin Laden, and essentially annihilated them and gave no quarter, the message would have been clear, rather than the current message which seems to suggest that it's smart to try and attack and destabilize us, as our reaction will do us more damage than the provocation.

mirc
mirç
mırc
mırç
mircturk
turkmirc
turkiyemirc
mircturkiye
mirch
mırch
mirc indir
mirc yükle
mirc yukle
mırc indir
mırc yukle
mirc turkiye
turkiye mirc
turk mirc
mirc turk
türkçe mirc
türkce mirc
türkçe mırc
turkce mirc
turkçe mirc
turkçe mırc
turkce mirc
mirc chat
mirc sohbet
mirc ara
muhabbet
chat
blog
muhabbet
forum
forum
turkiyeforum
türk forum
mirc
mircturk
turkmirc
mirc indir
sohbet
chat
bedava sohbet
turksohbet
turkiye sohbet
sohbet odaları
bedava chat
chat odaları
türk chat
türkiye chat
turkada
turkmirc
mirc inndir
karar

slm

Plaket
Seks Shop - Seks Shop - Penis Büyütücü
Plaket
Kostüm
Fotokopi
Matbaa
Fuar
Reklam Ajansı
Evden Eve Nakliyat

asdja

asas

hello

Thanks Best Regards
mirc
mırc
mırç
mircturk
mirctürk
turkmirc
mirc indir
mırc indir
mirç indir
mirc yükle
mırc yükle
mirc yukle
mırc yukle
mirch
mırch
mirc turk
turk mirc
mırc turk
mircada
mircturkiye
muhabbet
mirc sohbet
mırc sohbet
mirc chat
mırc chat
mırc ındır
mirc ındır
türkçe mirc
turkce mirc
turkçe mırc
turkce mırc
oper mirc
sohbet
forum
chat
online sinema
catlak
türk forum
turk forum
kafkas
kafkasya
ders
siyaset
izmir
karşiyaka
karsiyaka
forum
karsıyaka
sohbet

penis büyütücü hap

harbiarkadas.com
harbiarkadas.net
harbiarkadas.org
itirafet.org
ebedava.net
elektronikmarket.net
ameribress.com
clitoriacream.net
superspenisbuyutucu.com
megabress.com
rednightperformans.com
performansartirici.com
penisplus.tv
penispluspenisbuyutucu.com
penispluspenisbuyutucu.net
cinselmerkez.com
aseks.net
erotikcamasirlar.com
vajinatr.com
bakirevajina.com
cinselkozmetik.com
kozmetikmedikel.com
eturknet.com
tecavuz.net
yutuvideo.com
ponotubesex.com
laraperuk.com
sackanagimerkezi.com
peruksa.com
perukmarket.com
aseks.com
aloveshop.com
erotikgiyim.com
geciktiricispreyler.com
geciktiricihap.com
geciktiriciler.com
azdirici.com
bayanuyarici.com
fntazialemi.com
fantaziservisi.om
cinselmazemeler.com
cinselfantaziurunleri.com
erotikdakikalar.com
erotikmarketiniz.com
seksmarketiniz.com
sekshatlari.com
erotikdergiler.com
erotikderginiz.com
penisbuyutucuviprx.com
penisbuyutucuvigrx.com
penisbuyutuculer.com
vigrxpenisbuyutucu.com
sismebebekler.com
sismebebekshop.com
yemekeviniz.com
sanalmarketiniz.com
elektronikmarket.net
ebedava.net
kontortr.com
elaydin23.com
turkcellkontorcu.com
aveakontoral.com
vodafonekontoral.com
toptankontorcu.com
cinselkozmetik.com
bayanpartnerler.com
erkekpartnerler.com
kizarkadaslar.com
yonjaarkadas.com
siberalem-siberalem.com
sexpartnerler.com
sekspartnerler.com
erotikpartnerler.com
gencyuz.com
erkekarkadaslar.com
bayanarkadaslar.com
yemekeviniz.com
sanalmarketiniz.com
baskahaber.com
medikalkozmetik.net
kozmetikmedikal.com
zayiflamavediyet.net
zayiflamahapii.com
zayiflamabandii.com
kilovertr.com
zayiflamatr.net
diyettr.com
toksinbandi.net
botoxtr.com
botokstr.com
selulittedavii.com
selulitgiderici.net
selulitkremii.com
catlaktedavisii.com
catlakgiderici.net
catlakkremii.com

sex shop