Why is everything always a war with right-wingers? Considering they are the people least inclined to actually go and fight, is their bellicosity ever justified?
Consider, for example, the War on Drugs. Or better yet, the War on Terra. That latter is the name I prefer, because it’s a global war without an antagonist; it might as well be a war on Earth herself. It’s ludicrous to declare a war on terror, or even terrorism. You can’t declare war on an abstract concept, only on an actual enemy nation.
And who is the enemy, exactly? That much has never been clear.
If BushCo were honest–and they’re not–they’d tell us that their real enemy is the entire Muslim world. Or at least, the part of it that’s sitting on top of the oil they want. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be Muslim; it can be Christian, too, as long as it’s brown and not tame to Washington, and is sitting on top of vast amounts of fossil fuel. (See Venezuela.)
No, Virginia, there is no such thing as a war on terror, or terrorism. War is by nature terroristic, and always has been. It doesn’t matter what side you’re on; terror tactics are part of the game. Indiscriminate killing is the hallmark of war and terrorism both. It all gets excused, however, as “collateral damage”–as offensive a euphemism as I’ve ever seen for cold-blooded, random MURDER. (It’s instructive to see a terrorist who was also a war veteran–namely Tim McVeigh–draw that comparison quite explicitly. In fact, he learned his terror tactics as a soldier in Gulf War I!)
War is terrorism. The only real difference is that the one marches around in uniforms, and the other doesn’t.
That, and the scale of the “collateral damage”.
