The war on what?
Commenting on "the generally unhinged condition of political discourse in America", Brian Leiter nails the bullseye:
One really can't repeat this often enough: there is no "war on terror," not only because you can't wage war on a technique, but because there is no single agent of terrorism motivated by a unitary set of concerns. The whole "war on terror" is a fraud, and anyone who speaks of such a fake war should be laughed out of serious society. [Emphasis in original.]
This is about as non-partisan a bit of common sense as you'll find. That so few people on both the left and right acknowledge it is scary. What happens to a democracy when "we the People" are all out to lunch? We're finding out day by day.
(I don't think Leiter's quite as effective when he describes Bush's characterization of the "enemy" as "a construct worthy of Tolkien." Tolkien's fiction was magisterial, at once awesomely imaginative and profoundly relevant. Bush's fantasy stories, in contrast, are much more pedestrian -- on the level of, say, Sara Douglass' weaker novels. . . .)
Comments
By saying "Sara Douglass' weaker novels...", you imply that at some point she produced strong ones.
Bzzzt. Wrong.
Posted by: Brian | November 25, 2005 02:55 PM
I tried to trackback, but I guess it didn't work. So here is the linked-to post: "War on Terminology".
Posted by: David Schraub | December 5, 2005 12:49 AM
Same here. Tried to trackback, didn't work, here's the link:
http://spvgg.blogspot.com/2005/12/panopticum-legal-analysis-of-nsa.html
Hope all is well!
Posted by: Zoca | December 20, 2005 01:15 PM