December 6, 2004

The war on terminology  

Yglesias writes about the need for a new term to describe the war on terror, focusing at first on the word war in a comparison with the term Cold War, but then on the word terror and the way it seems on its face to refer even to ETA and other noninternational terrorist groups. I have (of course) long despised the rhetoric of the war on terror, starting with its name, which seems like perfectly crafted made-for-TV fearmongering. But it's actually dyed in the wool neocons who talk about Islamofascists, radical Islam, etc. Is this widespread usage a tacit admission that the word terror really isn't up to the task, or are we just talking about different things?

I'd guess that the main problem for the Bush folks with the term war on terror is that half the electorate has effectively detatched it from the war in Iraq: polls leading up to the election clearly separated the two issues even though Bush expended significant effort trying to tie them together.

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