i recently saw a scary example of how the metaphor of terrorism as disease can lead down quite a different path. check out the letters section of the sacramento bee 9/23. the analogy to cancer allowed some letter writers to justify "collateral damage."
http://www.sacbee.com/voices/news/voices07_20010923.html
According to a poll, more than 80 percent of Americans favor war against terrorists. But if asked to consider innocent people being killed, the poll diminished to 60 percent because innocent people can be a part of us.
I am a retired physician. When I examined a patient and found a definite 4 millimeter skin cancer, I would tell my patient, "Because you have definite skin cancer, similar to melanoma, I have to excise 4 centimeters of your skin." I didn't have to explain that surrounding tissue around the cancer is healthy tissue, even though healthy tissue is the same as innocent tissue.
Since no patients ever refused my treatment, there is only one way to cure. --Anthony Ahn, MD, Sacramento
Three years ago I was diagnosed with colon cancer. The doctors had to cut me open and remove half my colon. I went through six months of intensive chemotherapy during which I had to fight with all my heart, soul and determination to rid my body of a terrible disease. I have known people to give up and let the invader cells win. They died. I survived because I willed myself to.
Why am I telling you about it? We are now faced with a cancerous growth in this body we call Earth. If we don't fight it with all we have, the bad will win just as a disease will win if a person doesn't fight back. Just as the surgeons had to cut out healthy colon to get all the bad, so must we be willing to rid Earth of its cancer. The poison they pumped into me to kill the cancer cells also could not determine the difference between good and bad, so many good died with the bad.
We must treat terrorism as my doctors treated me. We must rid our body of this evil presence in a complete and thorough way. Sometimes we must kill to continue living. Let's suffer so as our children's children may live a cancer- (terror-) free life. --Stan Kiefer, Sacramento
(not all of the letters were this frightening. some were quite the opposite)