New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | July 28, 2005

You say war on terror, Bush says war on terrah... but, Michael Young pleads, let's not call the whole thing off.

Comments

|7.28.05 @ 1:44PM|#

...and Cheney says War on Terra! Ba dum dum.

Look, don't pay too much attention to the rhetoric they choose. Remember the blogosphere-wide freakout over "Axis of Evil?" What does he mean by "Axis?" Axis Powers? Is Iraq allied with North Korea? As it turned out, David Frum thought Axis of Evil had a nice ring to it, and it didn't signify anything more than that.

"If the public continues to associate the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts with combating Al-Qaeda and others, as it has done in the past three years..." The public hasn't associated the Iraq conflict with combatting Al Qaeda for going on two years.

|7.28.05 @ 1:48PM|#

joe reports. You decide.

|7.28.05 @ 1:53PM|#

I think Young misses an older version of struggle; that is the Catholic and Protestant struggle for the "soul" of Europe during the Thirty Years' War. I welcome the upcoming bloody stalemate.

|7.28.05 @ 1:54PM|#

As hairbrained a concept as a War on Terror is, "global struggle against violent extremism" isn't very catchy. Send it back to the catchphrase factory. (Reminds me of the "homicide bomber" bit).

In keeping with the closeted troskyite PNAC types behind this whole thing I say we call it the Permanent Peoples Democratic Revolutionary Liberation Struggle.

|7.28.05 @ 1:56PM|#

joe,

Young needs to start reading some Oliver Wendell Holmes, jr.

|7.28.05 @ 1:57PM|#

While "struggle" does indeed have a whiff of the mildewy left about it, "war" has lately garnered some associations with failure, viz., "War on Poverty," "War on Drugs."

How about using a German word, "Kampf"? Then, W could call it ....

|7.28.05 @ 1:57PM|#

Brian,

Fools create foolish slogans.

|7.28.05 @ 1:58PM|#

How's this fro a creepy, Orwellian, Roman-style throwback motto for this administration:

"Pax in Terrah"

|7.28.05 @ 2:02PM|#

Hakluyt,

"I welcome the upcoming bloody stalemate." Upcoming?

I don't get the Holmes reference.

|7.28.05 @ 2:06PM|#

Actually, I think "struggle" just won't be as ideologically appealing as "war" is, and will hurt the War, er Struggle against Terrorism, which is good news as far as I'm concerned.
If the Cold War had been called the Cold Struggle, maybe it would have ended a lot sooner...

|7.28.05 @ 2:10PM|#

joe,

Yes, upcoming; it will get worse.

Holmes, jr. was in the 20th Massachusetts in the Civil War.

_________________________________________________

Michael Young is casting his ideology bucket back into ancient streams that informed the policies of individuals like Oliver Cromwell and Ferdinand II. I wonder when Young's Book of Martyrs will be published? :)

|7.28.05 @ 2:27PM|#

I don't know, I don't think Mr. Young has a good grip on who Mr. Bush really is. I think he is naive if he thinks they are after "extremism". I mean after all, it is he, not the public, that associates Iraq with terror (and I'm still wondering why). I am unaware of any attempts to combat religious extremism in Mr. Bush, only attempts to bolster it.

Look at Bush's well documented connections to the House of Saud.

Bush's "war" on terrorism, seems a lot like the Saudi Osama's "war" on freedom.

|7.28.05 @ 2:40PM|#

Perhaps Bush is kicking it Stalin-style, and the use of the phrase "struggle against violent extremists" indicates an upcoming purge directed at neocons.

|7.28.05 @ 2:56PM|#

"Among the comrades, it seems, one incessantly struggles."

And among the neocon-rads, who have been delighted to inform all that we are now entering World War IV.

"If the public continues to associate the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts with combating Al-Qaeda and others..."

Realize there are two publics in the USA today, almost equally divided between those who make such an association with Iraq, and those who don't. Afghanistan was never questioned, but now Micheal Young conflates that conflict with Iraq, falsely.

|7.28.05 @ 2:58PM|#

By the way, the link from the main page isn't working: it says "links070805.shtml" instead of "links072805.shtml

|7.28.05 @ 3:02PM|#

Doesn't "Jihad" translate to "struggle". Are we just spitting the Islamacists rhetoric right back at them?

David Kennedy is a statist who wants to conscript all Americans into serving the fucking state. This is not the direction I want my country to travel. If the US government kept its heavy hands out of everything, then it would not require the services of so many conscripts. "Universal Service" is just another form of taxation. I just want to be left alone by the goddamn government.

|7.28.05 @ 3:13PM|#

Whatever GWB calls it, he'll only be doing so for three more years. I'm less concerned about the label and more concerned about not being blown up.

That being said, semantics and how they effect public opinion is one of the fronts in a 4GW. Ho didn't say he planned to murder those who didn't agree with him, he was unifying the people! Maybe ol' Bush is sending out skirmishers to test the enemy's strength in our minds.

|7.28.05 @ 3:18PM|#

I think he is naive if he thinks they are after "extremism".

In first hearing this rewording, I was not nearly so caught by "war" turning to "struggle" as by "terror" turning to "extremism".

As someone who is often called an extremist though I am not*, seeing such a soft word used to describe violent anticivilization barbarians is, shall we say, worrisome.

I was rather dismayed when Bush called for a War on Terror rather than a War on Particular Terrorists Attacking the United States and Associated Mutual-Defense-Treaty Protected Nations. I hoped he really meant the latter. History has shown that he didn't.

And now they're further broadening the object of the preposition....

* "Libertarianism is not extremist. It is the moderate, tolerant position between the extremes of prohibition and compulsion." -- Richard Boddie

|7.28.05 @ 3:53PM|#

Michael,

How is renaming the war to a struggle going to keep the public from "becoming weak-kneed on Iraq" or prevent soldiers from becoming "disgruntled with being turned into cannon fodder?" That's a pretty tall order for a one-word substitution! And how exactly is the terrorist enemy "flourishing among the linguistic ambiguities of its foes?" Aren't the terrorists (at least in Iraq) flourishing amid a poorly-planned war effort?

Unclear language reveals unclear thoughts of journalists as well as politicians.

keith|7.28.05 @ 4:00PM|#

I alsways thought "struggle" had an underdoggish, "doomed-to-failure but fighting the good fight anyway" sort of air about it, which might make you seem heroic but doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the eventual outcome.

And really, would any of these changes in rhetoric have any sort of effect on people if people didn't sit through a week's worth of pundits talking about the changes in rhetoric?

I think the White House should come up with increasingly convoluted and verbose ways to describe their policies, just so I can watch O'Reilly and Hannity have to continuously work the phrases into every day use.

Quasi-unrelated: our three biggest enemies in the world right now (according to the party line anyway) are a frustrated filmmaker (Kim), a frustrated baseball player (Castro -- does he even count as a mortal enemy any more?), and a frustrated building contractor (bin Laden). They're biggest enemy is a guy who goofed his way through college. I have no specific point to make with this, though.

|7.28.05 @ 4:21PM|#

I think the word "crusade" is pretty suitable. It doesn't have the "underdoggish" connotation that keith mentions. The word does, however, carry some other baggage that makes it improper.

"Jihad" works nicely too, but as was mentioned, it's already being used by the bad guys.

keith|7.28.05 @ 4:26PM|#

"Jihad" works nicely too, but as was mentioned, it's already being used by the bad guys.

Perhaps this could be one of those "seize the power of the word" things, like Dykes on Bikes. When everyone in the west is on a Jihad, the original jihadists will have to start making up new terms, like hizzouse and flippidy floppidy floo.

|7.28.05 @ 4:27PM|#

German speakers, is "Mein Kampf" "My War" or "My Struggle?" Or both?

|7.28.05 @ 4:35PM|#

joe,

I think it literally means "my fight". So I guess "my struggle" would be closer. I took over several years of German, but I can't remember much.

A global kampf against extremism?

|7.28.05 @ 4:39PM|#

I think the White House should come up with increasingly convoluted and verbose ways to describe their policies, just so I can watch O'Reilly and Hannity have to continuously work the phrases into every day use.

But then, wouldn't adding syllables make it just THAT much harder to understand our Ebonic-speaking President?

gaius marius|7.28.05 @ 5:15PM|#

struggle

10:1 that one of the old-school trotskyites/straussians in the administration came up with this. it's a classic projection of some neocon, going back to his ideological mama in marx. utterly hilarious and deeply frightening at the same time.

seeing such a soft word used to describe violent anticivilization barbarians is, shall we say, worrisome

my presumption, mr mikep, is that the change in terms is a deliberate expansion. when some administration spokesman calls a democratic senator "extremist" or some political position "extreme" now, it will carry an entirely different connotation -- and a wholly intentional one. history would indicate that it is only a matter of time before this policy of global revolution comes home; this is just laying the groundwork.

gaius marius|7.28.05 @ 5:22PM|#

It, too, involved ideology�far more so than the war against terrorism

i am laughing out loud at mr young. no ideology, hey? none at all. perhaps you could explain what exactly a global democratic revolution is then, mr young? or what michael ledeen is talking about?

|7.28.05 @ 9:23PM|#

Why not call it:

"Ji-had your own country, but now I-slam you"

|7.29.05 @ 6:32AM|#

joe,

TheDumbFish is right: "my struggle" or "my fight" are good translations. Regardless of how menacing it may sound in English, it is a pretty mundane word in German - people here speak of the "Kampf" they have keeping to their diets.

|7.29.05 @ 9:46AM|#

"You say war on terror, Bush says war on terrah... but, Michael Young pleads, let's not call the whole thing off."

Let's DO call the whole thing off.
Wars are sticks. I thought B. F. Skinner proved only carrots work.

|8.3.05 @ 7:18PM|#

I originally thought the "global struggle against violent extremism" had to be a horrible example of some committee's attempt at a catchy phrase -- until somebody pointed out that it can be shortened to "Global SAVE." Which, from a propaganda viewpoint, is a pretty good name. It had to have been picked for that acronym potential.

Are any of the speechifiers actually calling it "Global SAVE" now? (That phrase currently gets fewer than 45 hits on Google if linked to "terrorism" or to the full name spelled out.)