Pavlov's dogs of terror

By Joshua Holland
Another major terror plot foiled. Maybe.

Every one of them starts out with terrifying reports based on official statements, and then many -- but by no means all -- turn out to be far less serious than first believed. We'll know better when journalists start interviewing detached observers and poking around the alleged plotters' neighborhoods.

In the meantime, everyone seems to be playing their roles nicely.

Bush said the arrests "are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists…" An un-named Whitehouse spokes-slug slimed into the CT senate race, telling reporters that "Lamont Democrats say, 'Bring 'em home, turn away, and it will all be over,' the American people say, 'You're kidding yourself. We're in a war, and the only way you walk away from a war is as a victor …'" And Zell Miller/Joe Lieberman added, ridiculously, that liberals don't get that "the evil of the enemy that faces us [is] more evil or as evil as Nazism and probably more dangerous than the Soviet communists we fought during the long Cold War."

And here come the libs, just as eager to fight the imaginary War on Terrrr as Karl Rove's crew, but a bit more competently, if you please.

Kerry spokesman David Wade: "If these Republicans were half as good at fighting the war on terror as they are at misleading the American public, we'd be a lot safer than we are today."

Arianna wrote, "At a time when the real enemies in the war on terror have reared their murderous heads … [Republican] fear-mongering rhetoric conflating Ned Lamont's victory with the war on terror is as deeply offensive as it is jaw-droppingly outrageous." And Steve Gilliard opined that "Liberals want a winning, workable war strategy."

War, war, war, war, war, war.

Let's take a peak now at an alternative universe, one where "the left" had been confident enough to challenge the War on Terrrr narrative from the get go.

The Left: "As we've been saying for five years, describing the campaign against anti-American terror groups as a 'war' is as accurate as calling it an armadillo. British authorities have proven once again, as have other countries' security agencies, that terrorists can and should be rolled back using law enforcement and intelligence work. Launching attacks on sovereign countries radicalizes marginalized groups and does nothing but create more terrorists, as was the case with these disaffected young British Muslims who apparently fell into Al Qaeda's orbit, inspired, at least in part, by frustration over the open-ended occupaion of Iraq."

We'd be winning that argument if we had made it from the the beginning. And winning that argument would have meant winning arguments about torture, illegal domestic surveillance and Bush's powers as Commander-in-Chief. It all started when so many of us bought into the rhetorical war. At this point, it's pretty much too late to do much about it, but perhaps we can learn from that planet-changing mistake.