The Iron Yuppie

Cover the Terror War as a War via Instapundit.com

Interesting theory on how to make the coverage of the war on terror, in Mr. Hewitt's opinion, more accurate for the American public. My biggest problem with the war on terror is that it is absolutely never ending. That pretty much goes against the idea that it is a war. Wars (WWII is the example that Mr. Hewitt uses) have distinct beginning and endings. In the midst of WWII, you could go to Hitler and ask him to stop fighting and, then, peace. What do you do here? Go to Bin Laden? That doesn’t stop it. There is no end to this.

The real parallel here isn’t war, it is crime. You can try and reduce crime, but because the guy who mugs the individual down on the corner has little overlap with the stock broker trading on inside information, you cannot really associate the two. Not to mention the fact that if you define the problem in this way it makes for much more natural organizations to be created. Global police? Check. Security firms? Check. Root cause analysis? Check. Yes, it’s more pervasive, and, yes, it means that you cannot keep bringing it up as a forcing function (“We had to do this because it’s a war on terror!”) but it makes for much more natural choices about what you are going to invest in and why.