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David Weigel | April 17, 2006

Jonathan Rauch attempts to define what the "war on terror" is really a war against.

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|4.17.06 @ 9:00AM|#

None of this explains why the US went to war against Iraq, and is considering going to war against Iran, but does not go to war against nations like Saudi Arabia, that would seem to fit Jonathan's proposed definition.

Ergo: Jonathan's definition sounds nice on paper, but is not the operative definition in reality.

Ron Hardin|4.17.06 @ 9:03AM|#

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, writing op eds in 1800, and from what evidence I don't know,

A new religion had fanaticised whole nations. Men bred up in the habits of a
wild and roaming freedom, had been brought together by its influence, and
taught to unite the energies of a savage life with all the harmony and
calculable coincidencies of a machine. But this religion was deadly to
morals, to science, to civil freedom: no society could be progressive under
its influence. It was favorable to superstition, cunning, and sensual
indulgence; but it bore no fruit, it yielded no marriageable arms to the
vine, it sheltered no healing plant. The soil was grassless where it grew;
the fox made it its nest at the root, and the owl screamed in its branches.
- Such was the religion of Mahomet.

``The War Not a Crusade'' August 6 1800 _Essays on His Times_ v.I p.240, in
_The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_ Princeton University, EoHT
being collectively V.3., consisting of hundreds of newspaper opinion pieces.

|4.17.06 @ 9:20AM|#

Peacekeepers v. the Religion of Peace.

|4.17.06 @ 10:49AM|#

Dave W,

You're assuming that the administration is actually following a coherent plan in this "war on terror", rather than just using it as cover for invading the countries they wanted to invade anyway, before 9/11.

I think Jonathan's definition fits the war we should be fighting; if it doesn't fit the war we're actually fighting, that's the fault of those who decide which wars to fight...

|4.17.06 @ 11:02AM|#

I think Jonathan's definition fits the war we should be fighting; if it doesn't fit the war we're actually fighting, that's the fault of those who decide which wars to fight...

I guess we will have to wait and see how Jonathan feels about war against Iran. To tell the truth, I don't even know how he came down on the Iraq War. Neither Iran nor Iraq is within his definition of the jihadist enemy. This he should have stated this as plainly as I just did. We'll see how Jonathan really feels as the Iran War gets closer.

|4.17.06 @ 11:36AM|#

This reminds me of the old radio show, The Shadow. He had the power to cloud men's minds.

If we want to uncloud men's minds, who we gonna call?
The last would be government... especially government in panic/war mode.

James B.|4.17.06 @ 11:56AM|#

After four and a half years...World War II was over,

That's a pretty US-centric way of looking at it.

|4.17.06 @ 1:58PM|#

Excuse the jack. Have any of you seen Loose Change (available here http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8260059923762628848&q=Loose+change&pl=true) The idea that the US wants to win the war on "terror" assumes that the "terrorists" are real. Not to be a complete conspiracy nut, but are we even discussing the right "problem?"

|4.17.06 @ 2:55PM|#

I think Loose Change goes a bit far in its conjectures, too far, but it does point to another problem with Jonathan's gerrymandering of the definition of the problem here. A problem that we have already suffered from.

Specifically, if the problem is jihadists, then the problem is not negligence in dealing with the jihadists or any secret co-operation that non-jihadists may have given.

By focussing on jihadists, we rob focus from the law enforcement mess ups relating to signs that were missed.

by focussing on jihadists, we miss the possibility that the WTC landlord had his buildings pre-wired for detonation.

by focussing on jihadists, we miss the possibility that the next terrorists will be more like Timothy McVeigh or the ELF.

by focussing on jihadists, we miss the possibility that airlines really should have reinforced those cockpit doors a long time ago.

by focussing on jihadists, we neglect to properly prepare for floods.

by focussing on jihadists, we neglect to figure out who was trying to assasinate the leaders with anthrax.

Any problem that isn't the fault of the jihadists gets discounted irrationally.

|4.17.06 @ 4:17PM|#

Has anyone even considered what Native Americans might decide to do with all that casino money? Focus too much on jihadists and that answer may come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

|4.18.06 @ 1:23AM|#

Ergo: Jonathan's definition sounds nice on paper, but is not the operative definition in reality.

Jonathan's defintion is nice.

Jihadists, she writes, are not merely angry about U.S. policies. They believe that America is the biggest obstacle to the global rule of an Islamic superstate.

That's what I try to say around here, every time somebody says "oh, if we'd just stop supporting Isreal they wouldn't hate us". BS. They'd hate us anyway. [I've often been shouted down]

"This is a struggle over Islam and who's going to control Islam," Habeck says. "If you can't talk about that, you can't talk about most of the story."

And if I may -- I also said this back around 9/11. The first bin Laden speech made it clear, he's after power in the Islamic world, more than any other single thing. And the US is most certainly the enemy to defeat.

But even if all our politicians understood all of this, and it was the operative definition, would we be any better off?

I think not. Because we still wouldn't know who the hell "they" are, or how to fight them.

Sure, Saudi Arabia makes more sense than Iran and Iraq put together (well, maybe not true of Iran). But if we knocked Iran and Saudi Arabia both to their knees, the problem wouldn't be solved.

"They" would still be fighting a guerilla war, on an international playing field. And that is what makes this whole thing so elusive.

Definitions don't even solve the problem, when you get down to it.