Term:War on Terrorism

From dKosopedia

The rhetorical term War on Terrorism is used to describe a quite wide range of activities, not all of which are accepted as being related to terrorism by every American or citizens of allied countries. Among the activities supposedly justified by this War are:

• Homeland Security consolidation into a single department of 170,000 people
• The Iraq war
• The Afghanistan war
• A proposed Iran war
• Pressure on North Korea
• Support for the activities of Russia in Chechnya
• Support to democratize Arabia
• Support for a negotiated settlement in Palestine/Israel
• Limits or suppression of civil rights, e.g. Guantanamo Bay, use of biometrics on drivers license and passport and other government identity cards

Allies such as Canada have accepted some but not all of these measures as being "part of" this "War". For instance while Canada participates in the Afghan war it refused to participate in Iraq. It strongly opposes invasions of Iran or other countries with UN Security Council approval in advance. In the UK there is strong dissent about the cooperation between Blair and Bush and there have been very strong protests against the Guantanamo Bay situation even by UK Cabinet ministers. So there is little unity created by the use of this term, it may even be divisive.

Critics of U.S. inaction on climate change often dismiss this "war" as simply an excuse to continue the military-industrial complex domination of the US government, or to control oil supplies, in anticipation perhaps of the Hubbert peak rendering oil very expensive. Sometimes they mock this term with plays on it such as term:Moron Terrorism or just "the Moron Terror", a reference to the position:Bush is a moron avowed by a lot of his critics.

Finally, it is probably not possible to "war" on an abstract noun, so this can never really be more than a rhetorical term, it cannot describe a real event or set of events adequately. This is part of its usefulness and convenience for power holders, however, since a war that "cannot end" and can be renewed by any incident at all, can and is used to justify holding persons without trial forever.