Who’s responsible for the war on terror?

There are those who insist that it is not a “war” at all but perhaps, at best, a police issue — no big problem. Others contend that it is a result of American or Western expansionism so that its cure is simply for us to return to our frontiers and be content with what we have. If we do this withdrawal, every threat will immediately cease at this point. In another view it is due to poverty and oppression, even though most of the perpetrators of the war are quite rich. Yet another interpretation is that this turmoil stems from a very small minority with no relation to national or religious origins, a kind of floating international brigade of bandits, like the Mafia, out for their own profit and glory. The variants on these themes are almost infinite.
 

That’s from a good article at Ignatius Insight and the rich mind of Jesuit writer Fr. James V. Schall. What’s so interesting here is that it’s not only an analysis of the global war on terror itself, but of all the arguments about it.

The war in which we are currently engaged confuses us, in part because many will not admit it is a war. We do not know what to call it. Nor do we know what to call the self-declared enemy who has been attacking us in one form or another for some twenty-five years, ever more visibly and dangerously since 9/11, 2001, with subsequent events in Afghanistan, Iraq, Spain, London, Bombay, Bali, Paris, Lebanon, and Israel.

So we’re just confused, but he has a GREAT and concise explanation of WHY.

What names should we use that will accurately define and designate the cause? Calling things by their right names is the first requirement of reality; refusing to do so, the first cause of confusion, if not defeat.

How many different struggles in the culture come down to “calling things by their right names” as “the first requirement of reality” and the necessary prerequisite for truth. Period.

I’d love to leave it at that, and send you off contemplating the clarity of that thought. But the rest of that paragraph in the article is just too good.

At first, we were told that the war is against something called “terrorism.” Its perpetrators were logically called “terrorists.” It was considered “hate-language” to call them anything else. However, we find listed on no map a place called “Terroritoria,” where said “terrorists” otherwise dwell in peace plotting our demise. It has no capital, no military uniform for its mostly invisible troops, no rules of combat. In this designation, some difficult ensues when we try to identify or designate a group that just wants to “terrorize” others, as if that is an explanation. Some may like to travel or to fish for pleasure; they like “terror” for terror’s sake, just a question of taste…
 

Of course, this membership in a supposed organization called “Terror International” is not what the known “terrorists” claim for themselves…Those who practice “suicide bombing” (it is a once in a lifetime occupation, to be sure) call themselves “martyrs.” They are, when successful, treated as heroes by other “terrorists” and their admirers. Thus, the same action is called in one political zone “terrorism,” while, in another, it is called “martyrdom.” What do words mean?

Brilliant piece in it’s simple reasoning. Take the time to read it. I have not seen anything quite so clear and thorough on terrorism since 9/11, and that’s saying something. Because whole forests have probably been cut down and turned into paper for the amount of coverage this modern threat has generated. But none quite as concise as this.

We are in a war. Let’s have clarity on it.