On War

[mithriltabby]

War is armed conflict between nations. War is people dying from bullets and grenades and bombs and mustard gas and napalm. War is about control of physical territory.

The War on Drugs, the War on Terror, and George W Bush’s status as a “war president” are nothing more than propaganda. There is no nation of Drugs that can be conquered, no country of Terror that is attempting to topple our government. These are a different class of problem than wars, and it does us no good to think of them as war.

Drugs are a matter of supply and demand, not an enemy invasion: if you want to deal with drug problems, you need to get people to stop wanting them so much that they’ll make drug dealers rich to get their fix.

Terrorism is practiced by desperate people who believe they have no more sane way to advance their cause: dealing with it using the metaphor of war dignifies them, implicitly giving them the status of a nation, rather than treating them as a group of criminals. (Making more sane ways to advance causes clearly available might even help prevent groups from turning terrorist in the first place.)

Comments

[cmccurry.livejournal.com]

Nicely said. Thank you.

[deirdremoon.livejournal.com]

Hmm... Maybe we need to either reclaim or ridicule the word. Like, declaring a "War on War" campaign against Cheney.

As a side note, it's really, really scary to be re-watching Bab5 episodes right now. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Maybe I'll start referring to the Patriot Act as Nightwatch.

[mithriltabby]

The best I can come up with is “the War on Propaganda”. (We need to distinguish the abuses of the word “war” from its legitimate uses. One could have “the War on ‘War’ ”, but I think that might be less clear when spoken out loud...)

Thank you!

[hilarypoet.livejournal.com]

Sanity is so rare.
And well-expressed at that!

[mithriltabby]

There is a notion of fourth generation warfare (4GW) out there, but I still think we should eschew the term “war”, as such conflicts are to be dealt with via policy, not military strategy.

[mithriltabby]

A good starting point on 4GW at Disinfopedia.