I've always had a problem with the notion of a "War on Terrorism". It's not necessarily that there isn't an enemy who is hellbent on causing death and mayhem on this country and its allies. It's not that terrorism doesn't pose a clear and present danger to our livlihoods either. It's the more about my willingness to support a war against a tactic, not an ideology, nation, race, class, gender, alien species, or other traditional manifestations of what we go to war against: an enemy.
What do those traditional categories have in common that "terrorism" does not? Classes, races, nations and all the others are all definite nouns who claim definite people as their constituents. When it comes to people, terrorists are, at best "those who terrorize". It is a noun, but it is one borne of action... a close cousin to verbs. On the other hand, you have to "be" a fascist in order to be a fascist. Fascists do things like marching around, policing, obsessing over things like flags and getting hung out to dry on meathooks. In the English language, there is no way to fascist-ize someone. Fascism must be put into action. Terrorism is an action, even in a language where someone who "eats shoots and leaves" could be a cowboy or a panda depending on where you put a comma.
If I were reading this (and not writing it), I'd have already asked "who cares?" and stopped reading a paragraph ago. Here's why it matters.
For almost five years, we've been putting thousands of lives and billions of dollars towards a war on a tactic. When all this first began, I immediately asked, "who are they, and what are their demands?" The answer, "terrorists who are hellbent on our destruction" has never been satisfying. I was hoping rabid vegetarians, anti-globalization people, a militia group led by Ted Nugent, or some country would pipe up and say loud and clear,
"We are X and we want Y or else we'll Z!"
The problem is that terrorists could be anyone, and they could demand anything. Only the act itself is defined, not the who or why. How can you fight a war against the letter Z? We'd better call Sesame Street.
It is my firm belief that much of the confusion surrounding this war pivots around this fact. We have people locked up indefinitely in Guantanamo bay and who knows where else all because they are somehow tied up in the use of a tactic. We've gone into wars in regions that seem to have a preference for such tactics, and have repeatedly killed and maimed anyone who was remotely in the vicinity of individuals who prefer such tactics, claiming any justification with a nice ring (weapons, democracy, stability...) This is the strategic equivalent of killing the patient to cure the disease, all while severely pissing off their family and friends.
If anything, these acts have served to accrete a more solid enemy body from the nebulous cloud of hatred and neglect that is somewhat mysteriously responsible for a few real and repeatable atrocities. Maybe the point in a "war on terrorism" was to create a definite target for our smart bombs and special forces, to induce demand for expensive but relatively painless interventions where cheaper ones requiring some of our own sacrifice were more appropriate.
It is clear now just how opaque this problem really is. Al Qaeda was never an organization that had real, definite members. There is no Al Qaeda uniform, no motto. (Al-Qaeda: the war against the Decide-ah?) At least the Taliban, Hizbullah, Baathists and Wahhabists are political parties or ideologies. Anyone who wants to be a member of Al Qaeda simply fires a gun in the right direction, or blows themselves up in the right crowds. Al Qaeda membership, if there is such a thing, certainly has a high turnover rate.
Republican talking points have recently driven home the concept of Islamic Fascists in hope that this would gel as a more concrete threat to potential voters. The past 5 years have taught us that fomenting a war on a tactic and not something more tangible, can cost much of the ideological coherence that takes decades to assemble. For those who grasp at nouns and adjectives, November looms as a growing portent; threatening the foundations of a towering empire of the fearful and selfish, seemingly impermeable for so long, cloistered in their gated communities.
Where there were once old white men with property, there are now neo-cons, paleo-cons, crunchy-cons and ex-cons. Usually the providence of leftist quibbles over Lenin and Trotsky, ideology has multiplied unbounded in the virgin pastures of the heartland, AM radio and certain cable networks. Housewives today will lecture you about whether we should have abandoned Kissinger's realist foreign policy mindset for the more idealistic model at present.
We have witnessed the frustrating power of a war without a noun, and have fought back with dictionaries-full of objects and subjects. Many have attempted to rally themselves around labels in response to this terrifying lack of an ethos. Are you decisive or a waffler? Do you stand with our president or against him? Will we "cut and run" or stand tough? Many have sought refuge in the protective shadow of a new thesaurus of buzzwords growing ever-thicker at a maddening clip, but these problems of description continue to confound while cities burn.
Curiously, this is absent on the left. A year ago, this lack of nouns was seen as a handicap. Today, it looks like a real asset. It would be wise not to even try. Democrats today are unconstrained by noble stands against tyranny, unhindered by valiant efforts against oppression. As the opposition, they can clearly shout from the backbenches, "put up or shut up". Pundits continue with shouts of "with us or against us" slogans and people are asking more and more, with whom? against whom? The people we're fighting in Iraq seem to change weekly, but are somehow all called "terrorists". The guys offering solutions through a calculated, rational process will win this time. People are exhasuted from shouting.
Despite half a decade of warfare, we are still confronting real, complex, problems without names. We round up 20 jihadists here, stop a bomb there, but our enemies are just plain tough to identify. Getting some traction in this muddy fight requires digging deep and looking for purchase in the minds of people far away, with ideas far different from our own. More and more people agree that there is no clear target as some have proclaimed. This war is not between nations, religions or other traditional labels. It is the product of a social phenomenon unseen in the past.
There are no Hitlers, Churchills or Chamberlains enmeshed in mortal combat, no Antietams, Battles of the Bulge or Cold Wars raging here.
This is something new and different. We need new and different leaders to fight this war.
