A plea for verbal precision

Chris Roach writes at mansizedtarget.com that the string of recent foiled terrorist attacks

are very important. And this heuristic of ignoring “near misses” impedes clear thinking and good policy. These attacks show we’re still at war. They show the enemy means business.

“These attacks show we’re still at war.” No, Mr. Roach, the attacks show that our enemy is still at war with us. They do not show that we are at war with our enemy. For the last six years, conservatives keep saying, “We’re at war, we’re at war,” and this untrue statement introduces a spectacular element of unreality and conceptual confusion into the entire conservative debate about the Islam threat. How can we sensibly discuss what we need to do to defend ourselves from Islamic extremism, when we falsely imagine that we are already “at war” against it?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 14, 2007 02:13 PM | Send