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On
Metaphors and the Importance of Being Thorough
by
Robert Heiler, Executive Director, IASPS - DC
A schism exists in the U.S. policy community with respect to the proper
response to the attack on America last week, as cogently
described by Jim Hoagland in the September 19 Washington
Post. The two camps are being characterized
as favoring either “mass attack” or “surgical
strike,” the latter of which amounts to getting Osama
bin Laden and waging what George Will has called a
cathartic attack on Afghanistan.
The very phrases reflect a bias that denies fundamental truths about the
September 11 attack. A “mass attack” is a phrase
that appeals on a visceral level to people bent on
revenge; a “surgical strike” is the response of a
calm, reasoned symbol of authority based on expertise.
Both of these phrases are therefore inappropriate.
America has already suffered a mass attack; worse, the
nation stands unsettlingly unprotected from imaginable
attacks of even greater magnitude. Far from the extreme
sound of the phrase, and answering mass attack is not
only morally justified, but necessary to address the
problem sufficiently to render subsequent attacks less
likely.
As for the “surgical strike” phrase, one can almost see the
white-smocked avuncular physician in the words
themselves. Surgeons are probably the most trusted and
revered of all professions. But the reasons that a
surgical strike will not work are inherent in the
medical metaphor. Any surgeon will tell you that the
utility of his skills depends upon early detection of
the disease; and terrorism is a cancer that has long
since metastasized. Indeed, the existence of
“terrorist cells” throughout the U. S. and the world
indicates the global equivalent of a systemic condition
that surgeons would call inoperable.
If the language of medicine is to be used, let us cast all of the
options in its vocabulary. While a surgical strike might
remove the tumor of Osama bin Laden, follow-up
treatments are clearly indicated to fight an affliction
so advanced. This metaphor is not a reference to
specific types of weapons of mass destruction; rather,
it is a recognition that there are, in fact, states that
support terrorism in many ways, and that these states
must cease to exist in their current forms. Call them
the hair that falls out of the heads of those forced to
suffer chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
The trick here is to
find a protocol strong enough to destroy the cancerous
cells without killing the organism itself, which is to
say the political order of the globe. Time is of the
essence. And the strategy of a lone surgical strike can
only end in one way: even if the operation is a complete
success, the patient will most assuredly die.
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