Progressives: Let's Drop the "War on Terror" Metaphor

Just got through reading George Lakoff's "Moral Politics" book, about a year after everyone on the blogs was talking about it. For those of you who haven't gotten to it yet, I'm sure you've heard the basic idea... that people understand the world through metaphors, and process new facts within basic conceptual "frames" based on these metaphors.

Further, Lakoff states, the Republicans have intuitively understood this for some time now and have gotten a head start refining how to pitch their ideas in words that fit into and reinforce the frames, then disseminating those words through their media apparati.

Basic examples of this process being the substitution of "pro-life" for "anti-abortion" and "death tax" for "estate tax."

One of the biggest successes that the Republicans have pulled off in the last five years is to create a nearly unanimous embrace of the "War on Terror" metaphor and phraseology. Not only have they hammered it home in countless speeches and papers, but they have gone out of their way to ridicule and lambast anyone who appears to endorse the alternative metaphor of "law enforcement."

According to these conservatives, anyone who seems to think that we will prevail against terrorists by gathering intelligence about them, arresting them and jailing them is weak and foolish and dangerous to national security. They are so bad, they are just like Bill Clinton, who as everyone knows, allowed 9/11 to happen.

Instead, the efforts to prevent terrorist attacks must take the form of a War. A "Global War." A "Long War." "A War of Civilizations." Yada, Yada, Yada.

Once we, as a nation, bought into this metaphor, we handed the terrorism issue over to the Republicans, who are PERCEIVED as being better at waging wars (a perception based more on tough talk than a historical war-winning record, btw).

Furthermore, we automatically acquiesced to some rather sweeping and drastic notions. Notions that may not be supported by facts or jibe with the norms and liberties the U.S. has grown accustomed to.

Consider:

1. A War implies that the struggle is for our very survival as a nation.

2. Because the War is for our very survival, it raises the stakes and gives our government greater leeway. In war, the government can ask greater sacrifices, spend more, curtail more rights and silence criticism in ways that they can't in peace.

3. When a nation is at War, those who disagree with that nation become supporters of the enemy and, consequently traitors.

4. In a War, captured enemies (who pose a threat to our survival, remember?) do not deserve or receive the same rights and considerations that accused criminals might receive.

We've seen all of these points made, ad infinitum, from W's lectern and the wingnut blogs to support this War metaphor. To me it falls apart at point one. As many times as I have it screeched at me, I just can't believe that a couple hundred Al Queda can destroy or conquer the United States of America.

However, this War metaphor been successful at cowing many Democrats into meekly following the Republican leads on many, many bad moves. So it's been a success in that sphere.

But in the sphere of actually reducing the number of terrorists and their capability and motivation to attack globally, the War approach has been a total flop, as the recent National Intelligence Estimate pointed out.

So in other words, this War metaphor only serves to make Republicans stronger and everyone in greater danger.

So let's stop buying into it. Let's stop using it. Let's correct others when they do use it.

The next time, you are in conversation with a wingnut and they use the phrase "War on Terror" say:

"Do you really think it's a War?"

Then follow up with questions that ridicule and destroy that notion:

"Wars are between nations. Which nation are we at War with? What does their uniform look like? Where is the battlefield? Who is in the chain of command? How do we win this war? When will we know? Who will sign the articles of surrender on the deck of a battleship?"

This will throw them. They'll begin searching their database of Rush Limbaugh talking points and come back at you with something along the lines of "so I guess you think this is a law enforcement issue." They might even throw in "like Clinton."

Now you crush their thinking as simplistic and antiquated and overwhelm them with how much more advanced your thinking is on this topic. You also slap them with one of their own code words, with the meaning twisted to suit your purpose.

"Your thinking is so pre-9/11. That there are only two ways to think about terrorism. This is the 21st century.

There are some aspects of a war to this, in some limited cases. If a state or nation is officially or unofficially providing support to terrorists, then it's appropriate to take action on the state or national level, like declaring a war.

And there are some law enforcement aspects to ending terrorism attacks. In fact, I'd say that the biggest successes in the last year have been the result of good, solid intelligence work in London, not our expensive, losing, bloody war in Iraq. And that it's a lot more efficient to work with foreign governments to round up and arrest terrorists than it is to destroy a country to fight them in the streets.

But if we really want to end terrorism, we've got to be more comprehensive than just War and Law Enforcement.

For instance, it's also a marketing campaign. The imans of these radical islamist mosques and madrassas are telling their side of the story to the impressionable Islamic youth. We've got to convincingly SHOW and TELL our side as well to PREVENT more young people from being converted into someone who wants to attack us.

It's an economic issue. Though the most visible terrorists are rich pricks like Bin Laden, they get their emotional support from the miserable poor who feel like they've got no future in this world and want to reverse course to some fabled Islamic past. Freeing up widespread economic opportunity thoughout the world will drain that swamp of the resentment they feel against the West and isolate the real radicals from their potential base of support.

It's a political issue. How many times do we have to hear Arabs of all stripes --- fundamentalist, radical, moderate and liberal --- say that they're angry about the Israeli/Palestine issue before we accept that it's a problem which keeps inflaming that part of the world? The U.S. needs to get tough and fair with both sides, and broker a peace shuts down that engine of hatred."

At this point, the Conservative is beginning to suffer a cognitive panic. He likes to have a single, cohesive, structural framework for his thoughts. You've buffetted his War frame and unless he is offered something similarly over-arching, he'll disregard everything he's heard so far and retreat back to it.

So you hold out an alternative frame.

Now, don't think that he's going to take it. He probably won't.

But what it might do, hopefully, is introduce the idea that there are other, logical, comprehensive ways to think about how to end terrorism. That serves to weaken his fervor for the War metaphor. Which is enough. Just like in elections, often you know you can't convert your opponent's voters to your side so you try to depress them and keep them home. In this case, you create one less person walking around parroting the Republican line to other people.

My favorite metaphor is the disease metaphor. It's simplistic, it's reductive, it's comprehensive.

I say:

"First off, ending terrorism in a globalized world is too complex and novel a situation to reduce to a simple metaphor. It is its own thing. Not a war. Not an anti-crime initiative. It is stopping the capability and destroying the incentive of people around the world to attack us. But if I had to pick an analogy, I would think of ending terrorism as fighting a disease. Like a virus. Or a cancer.

You absolutely do all you can to isolate and destroy the diseased cells. With caution but without mercy. This means using force selectively and precisely.

But you're also smart about it. Along with destroying those cells, you also do everything you can to strengthen your body to prevent the disease from getting a toehold in the first place. This means political and economic reform.

You also strengthen an immune system that will automatically fights the disease wherever it pops up. This means working with the governments around the world to find and catch terrorists that we don't even know about yet.

And most of all you don't ever, ever allow anyone to sell you on a cure doesn't work and actually makes you sicker. Surely I don't have to explain to you what that means."