[from new member of the ABB club: ObL]:
The threat of such an attack is already helping Bush. I'm surprised that there is any disagreement about this question, since all of the polling shows that Americans overwhelmingly think that Bush is tougher on terrorism than Kerry...Chuck0
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Sure. But the question is why, and how has Bush managed to position himself in that spot so that if there is an attack, he may gain some support, and if there isn't an attack, he can claim his policies have worked? (The original of this post was composed for another thread, so it isn't addressed specifically to Chuck0.)
Since the War on Terrorism is entirely under Bush's control and only his control, he will win points by sticking to this issue for as long as it takes to squeeze out a razor thin lead based on a nebulous public fear. Evidently this fear mongering works on the `security' concerns of an undecided middle America, where the tiny numerical differences between Kerry and Bush change with the wind.
Well, here's my answer to this absurdity, mostly based on some things that George Lakeoff said about conceptual frames.
Kerry has no plan to deal with the War on Terrorism, so he will constantly lose ground by default. Kerry has trapped himself on this issue, exactly because he is selling himself as the stronger, strongest, strongerest, tougher than tough, the tougherest of the toughtest.
At some point Kerry has to put some distance between himself and Bush and he can't. Why? Because the only way to really distance himself from Bush, is to point out the entire War on Terrorism is nothing more than election driven propaganda and histrionics. In other words it is a fraud.
First of all, there shouldn't even be a War and second, there is no such thing as Terrorism. There is some finite collection of concrete individuals who are terrorists and do terrorist acts. But there is no concrete and demonstrable entity called Terrorism because it is an all embracing totality of evil chimaera.
Terrorism is the central political fiction, the meaningless bogieman, the empty signifier of Bush's entire foreign policy--and the central pillar of his election strategy. Both policy and strategy are completely absurd because they are constructed around an utterly empty symbol, Terrorism. The individual terrorists who are identified and occasionally captured, mostly by other countries, merely pale in comparison to the big monster, Terrorism.
This is the propaganda beauty of using an empty signifier. Terrorism is anything that Bush says it is. It is pure vessel with no content except what Bush pours into it. Since it is an evil of infinite scope and aspect, then fighting it is a forever war of good against evil. Obviously Bush is fighting it, so he is good. Anybody who questions this fight is of course for evil.
If Kerry so much as mentions any of these kinds of qualifications, he is obviously soft on Terrorism. No good man can be soft on Terrorism. Therefore Kerry is not a good man.
If Kerry tries to co-opt the validity of the War on Terrorism, then what is the point of voting for him? Bush is already fighting the War on Terrorism. So Kerry is a me-too product.
The War on Terrorism is Bush's war and he has defined it. If you are against Terrorism, then you have to vote for Bush. On the other hand, if Kerry denies the validity of the War on Terrorism then he is not a good man, obviously he will not fight the War on Terrorism and shouldn't be elected. Kerry loses no matter what side he takes.
If Kerry is against Bush, he must be against the War on Terrorism. Kerry says he will fight the War on Terrorism, better. But we don't know how, because Bush defines the War on Terrorism. And it follows that only Bush knows how to fight it. If Kerry is against the War on Terrorism, then he is simply against the good fight. If Kerry tries to question the War on Terrorism, then he is against the fight for the good, and a traitor to everything holy.
These vicious circles follow from the fact that Bush owns the War on Terrorism. He owns an infinite propaganda tool that can not be used against him. OBL strikes, Bush wins. OBL doesn't strike Bush wins.
Bush, through the creation of an empty signifier, has sole ownership to the universe of discourse about which all questions and answers must return to his privileged position as owner and master. The privilege of ownership and mastery consists in the simple fact that only Bush knows what Terrorism is.
So, the way out these circles is to redefine the universe of discourse, in effect circumvent Bush's privileged ownership and mastery of an empty signifer, Terrorism. This is what Lakeoff calls changing frames.
One way to do that is to create a more concrete and identifiable universe of discourse which Kerry can exercise his privilege of ownership and mastery, against Bush. That can be done through the substitution of Terrorists, for Terrorism.
The basic problem with fighting Terrorism, is you almost never get any Terrorists. Or, alternatively, you get so many different people you have no idea who or what they are. Kerry can provide specific and definite policies and plans for identifying and dealing with individual terrorists. He can distinguish himself from Bush, since he can deal with individual terrorists, most of whom have entirely eluded Bush.
Bush's War on Terrorism is like the Fight Against Communism. There were very few, if any living, breathing, spying, and seditious US Communists, period. Of those, few were ever caught, tried and convicted---and most of those were the wrong people anyway. The same process is underway again. There are few terrorists in captivity. Most who are in the dungeons are essentially meaningless figures, very low grade or simply the wrong people.
Now the claim that we have most of the former Iraqi government behind bars and are therefore making process in the War on Terrorism, completely breaks down, if the focus can be changed to an appraisal of individual terrorists.
For instance, none of the Iraqi government figures were terrorists. They might have been murderous, corrupt, brutal, and nasty or completely inept, but they were not terrorists. They did not drive trucks loaded with explosives into military and government offices and blow them up. They did not fly planes into big buildings. They were a government. These figures could only be made culpable of terrorism within a discourse that centers on an indefinite and vague realm of a War on Terrorism. Outside that universe, these figures are merely former government officials who may or may not be guilty of political murders, corruption and malfeasance. They might have used their positions of power for personal gain, but they were hardly interested in destorying the cash cow that they milk, the government. Terrorist on the other hand are usually not interested in personal gain and are interest in tearing down governments. Gaining power isn't the same as personal gain, since those in power use power for amassing personal gain, while those out of power could more easily just become criminials if personal gain was their only motive.
Now the distinction between terrorists and bad governments can be eladed, by defining the government as a Terrorist government. But that label is a little tricky to manipulate since, first of all governments are concrete entities with reasonably definable parameters and a fact based history. The problem is their very concreteness works against the label of Terrorist, because the label can be debated by using empirical evidence, i.e concrete facts. There is no debate about Terrorism. It is an indefinite realm that can take on qualities and parameters of any scope or aspect and therefore all concrete or empirical arguments are nullified in advance.
On the other hand, Terrorists are by definition, not members of governments. Terrorists fight against governments. The US could bring down every government in the entire Middle East and make absolutely no progress at all in capturing any terrorists or put a stop to terrorist activities. Instead, the US would have a bunch of rotten former government officials behind bars. So what? If the US had overthrown all those goverments in 90s, there would most likely be even more terrorists.
In any particular point in a War on Terrorism, whoever owns the War, gets to appraise its scope. If a terrorist event occurs, the War on Terrorism obviously needs more work. If a terrorist event doesn't occur, then the War on Terrorism is successful and needs to be maintained. The double-think aspect of such a War on Terrorism can be contrasted to the position on Terrorists. Individual terrorists are either alive or dead. Terrorism is never dead. Further individual terrorists can be either free to wreck mayhem or they are in jail. If they are in jail, then are not free to commit acts of terror. Terrorism since it has no objective or objectifiable existence, can never be contained or limited.
Some of these arguments are weaker or stronger than others, but something like them has to be brought into the policy debate if we are ever going to be free of this War on Terrorism bullshit.
CG