Posted on 07/15/2002 1:06:58 PM PDT by Conservative Chicagoan
That's the whole point. When the target is eliminated, government has to stand down as it can no longer justify the wartime budget. To avoid this eventuality, government conjures up an omnipresent, ambiguously defined, ever-changing enemy in order to justify continuous, increasing budgets and regulations. To define the enemy in tangible terms would, from government's perspective, be counterproductive to its real mission: perpetuating and expanding its power.
What views?
It's stupid! I would be so pissed if I was one of the actual anchors over there with this guy (the boss) simply deciding to put himself on primetime for an hour. MSNBC...holy crap it's bad.
...don't they mean the "Snack Cam"?
"Jerry Nachman may effect "calm" better than any newsman alive. He is sitting in his new, mostly unfurnished office in MSNBC's squat gray headquarters in Secaucus, N.J., and the only obstacle between him and nirvana is a cookie. He must have a cookie! Cookie delivered, the mood brightens and a champion talker unspools his thoughts...Donahue has gotten all the press, but Nachman - waving the chocolate chip cookie about - gives the impression of someone who will shortly correct that egregious oversight."
Is this a joke? Nachman would need viewers (stupid ones at that) before he could change anything. I would advise Nachman to jump ship before the SS MSNBC goes totally under...if I thought nachman could swim...
So "terrorism" is an "abstract noun" (whatever that is), but "Germany" and "Japan" (names we give to not-precisely-defined groups of people and/or the geographic locales they inhabit, not always even making a clear distinction between the two....) are not?
Can't I use your argument to poo-poo the idea of a war against a "nation", as well? "Pshaw! How can one fight a war against a 'nation'? It's so abstract! So open-ended! Why, the very idea of fighting a war against 'Germany' or 'Japan'! It's preposterous!"
Let's speak realistically for a moment. The war is against radical Islamists. That's who is trying to kill us or convert us, and so that's who the war is against. In order to conform to current sensibilities, we can't refer to the war in these terms, so we call it (some do, anyway - personally I don't care what we *call* the war) a "war on terror". This is understood by most people. However, there are some (like yourself) who like to focus on what we call the war, as if that is paramount, as opposed to what we are trying to do in this war.
No, you can't fight wars against "abstract nouns", you are right. You can't fight wars against "terrorism" and for that matter you can't even fight a war against "Germany". Wars are fought against people: i.e. Nazis. Or, Islamo-fascists. Get it now?
If, on the other hand, the enemy is defined in abstract terms such that he could be anyone and everywhere, then the billions in spending and expansion of federal power can be sold to the voters as necessary and proper.
The War on Terror and, more specifically, the Department of Homeland Security, will move very quickly beyond Islamic militants to the mission originally intended by the Clinton/Gore administration (which actually drafted the plans now being implemented by the Bush administration): the apprehension of domestic anti-government activists.
No argument there (I said as much). Its name (or rather, the name everyone seems to be calling it - do wars have "official names"?) is precisely what makes it more palatable to the average Joe Americans, and that's why it was chosen, rather than, say, "War Of Holy Vengeance to Exterminate Islam".
The War on Terror and, more specifically, the Department of Homeland Security, will move very quickly beyond Islamic militants to the mission originally intended by the Clinton/Gore administration (which actually drafted the plans now being implemented by the Bush administration): the apprehension of domestic anti-government activists.
We'll see. If that happens, it will be wrong, of course. I'm not crazy about the "Department of Homeland Security" in the first place, and never said I was - but of course you've changed the subject anyway (from your original comment claiming you can't fight wars against abstract nouns....).
Best,
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