And take your GWOT with you

One of my favorite books from high school is Orwell's 1984. Mostly for the lesson in how language can be used as a framing mechanism for controlling what can be effectively communicated, or even conceived of to start with.

Language is the the key to abstract thought, and abstract thought is the key to reason.

So, as I wave goodbye to the Bush years, I am extremely hopeful that Obama will quickly retire the ridiculous term "Global War on Terror." I always always always hated this formulation. Mostly, because since it was so purposefully inaccurate -- it has been said it made as much sense as declaring a War on Hand Grenades; since it is a tactic, not an enemy -- that it seemed to imply bad faith a priori on the part of those proffering it. And, in retrospect, I think it is clear this assumption of bad faith was true.

By contrast, here is a statement by UK foreign minister, David Miliband, in the wake of the recent terrorist attack on Mumbai.

I agree with every word of it:

Terrorism was not invented or started on 9/11. But since then, the notion of a "war on terror" has defined the terrain. The phrase had some merit: it captured the gravity of the threats we face, the need for solidarity amongst allies, and the need to respond with real urgency - and where necessary with force.

But for a couple of years now the British Government has used neither the idea nor the phrase "war on terror". The reason is that ultimately, the notion is misleading and mistaken. Historians will judge whether it has done more harm than good. But we need to move on to meet the challenges we face.

The issue is not whether we need to attack the use of terror at its roots, with all the tools available to us. We must. The question is how we best do so.

The notion of a war on terror gave the impression of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama Bin Laden and the organization of Al Qaeda. In fact, as India has long known, the forces of violent extremism remain diverse. Terrorism is a deadly tactic, not an institution or an ideology.

The global threat from violent extremism has become more real because technology enables terrorists to connect more easily with each other, whether to plot and plan or to ape each other's tactics and techniques. But it is also more potent because Al Qaeda and its ilk seek to aggregate different local, regional and religious problems into a single complaint: the alleged oppression of Muslims around the world.

Yet the motivations and identities of terrorist groups - from Hizbollah to the Taleban, Tamil Tigers and Lashkar e Toiba - are disparate not singular. The more we lump terrorist groups together and draw the battle lines as a simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists or good and evil, the more we play into the hands of those seeking to unify groups with little in common, and the more we magnify the sense of threat. The trap to avoid is inadvertently sustaining Al Qaida's propaganda - their claim that disparate grievances add up to a unified complaint. We should expose their claim to a compelling and overarching explanation and narrative as the lie that it is.

This strikes me as a mature, thoughtful, direct and steadfast statement about the principles that should underlie our ongoing confrontation with radical Islamic terrorists.

Of course, it stands in stark contrast to the black/white, Us/Them jihad against jihad that the Bush White House has subjected us to for the past 7+ years.

Christian Brose, in Foreign Affairs, highlights Bush's unyielding and mind-numbing consistency on this point right on through his farewell address to the country.

Here is Bush last night:

The battles waged by our troops are part of a broader struggle between two dramatically different systems. Under one, a small band of fanatics demands total obedience to an oppressive ideology, condemns women to subservience, and marks unbelievers for murder. The other system is based on the conviction that freedom is the universal gift of Almighty God and that liberty and justice light the path to peace.

I have little to quibble with in the descriptions; it's the comparison that bothers me. And the reference is clear. Here is President Harry Truman speaking to Congress on March 12, 1947:

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.

One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression. The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.

There was a time after 9/11 when America needed a president who saw the people who had just attacked us as a world-conquering, ideological counterweight to American liberalism. And Bush answered that call.

Now, more than seven years on, we need to insist -- without compromising one bit of our post-9/11 seriousness, vigilance, or willingness to defend ourselves -- that by raising al-Qaeda and company to our level, we are only degrading ourselves while painting them as the very thing they aspire to be.

Our enemy in this confrontation is a deviant bunch of bitter-enders, whose only ideas about organizing society have been rejected everywhere -- everywhere -- they've been forced on people. The sooner we start treating them as such the better.

Bush could never accept that, let alone do it.

It is said that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. In this case, there was more than a hobgoblin at work. It was the frickin' Godzilla of small minds on the loose.