NoteDavid Brooks' take on a codicil of the 9/11 report, in which the Senators state that, while this war has been called a "War on terror", Terror is not what we fight against. In fact, those who attack targets in the US have a specific ideology -- Islamic extremism -- with the goal of wiping out ours (secular capitalism and democracy).
Quite right. "Terror" is a technique; the US is no more in a war against terror than minutemen of 1776 were in a war against ball and powder. If one is beat up by a bully on a playground, one is not in a fight against fists, but in a fight against a bully and irrational domination. When attacked, one does not get to choose the attackers reasons. To fight back, and fight the right opponents, we must fight back over the same reasons we are attacked.
In a defensive war, we do not get to choose the reasons to fight it. We have been attacked by Islamic extremists with the purpose of destablizing our society. The war we have to fight must be against Islamic extremists who would attack us to destablize our society.
Oh -- and not against secular middle-eastern dictators who have never attacked the US, nor have any capability of doing so, nor any capability of helping others do so. That too.
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