Monty Python weighs in on 9-11

[Toby G Levy]

Why grammar is the first casualty of war 

By Terry Jones, Monty Python member, writer and performer

December 1, 2001

WHAT really alarms me about President Bush's "war on terrorism" is the
grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? It's rather like
bombing murder.

Imagine if Bush had said: "We're going to bomb murder wherever it lurks.
We are going to seek out the murderers and the would-be murderers, and
bomb any government that harbours murderers."

The other thing that worries me about Bush and Blair's "war on terrorism"
is: how will they know when they've won it? With most wars, you can say
you've won when the other side is either all dead or surrenders. But how
is terrorism going to surrender?

It's hard for abstract nouns to surrender. In fact it's very hard for
abstract nouns to do anything at all of their own volition - even trained
philologists can't negotiate with them. It's difficult to find their
hide-outs, useless to try to cut off their supplies.

The bitter semantic truth is that you can't win against these sort of
words - unless, I suppose, you get them thrown out of the Oxford English
Dictionary. That would show 'em. Admittedly, the Second World War was
fought against fascism.

But that particular abstract noun was cunningly hiding behind the very
real Nazi government. We simply had to defeat Germany to win. In
President Bush's war, there is no such solution. Saying "We will destroy
terrorism" is about as meaningful as saying: "We shall annihilate
mockery."

Moreover, in its current usage, terrorism cannot be committed by a
country. When America bombed a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory under the
impression that it was a chemical weapons establishment, that was stupid.
But it was not an act of terrorism because the US Government did it
officially. And it apologised for it.

That's very important: no self-respecting terrorist ever apologises. It's
one of the few things that distinguishes legitimate governments from
terrorists. So, it was difficult for President Bush to know whom to bomb
after the World Trade Centre outrage.

If Bermuda had done it, then it would have been simple: he could have
bombed the Bahamas. It must have been really irritating that the people
who perpetrated such a horrendous catastrophe were not a nation.

What's more, terrorists - unlike a country - won't keep still in one
place so you can bomb them. They have this annoying habit of moving
around, sometimes even going abroad. It's all very un-American (apart
from the training, that is).

On top of all this, you have no idea who the terrorists are. It's in
their nature not to be known until they've committed their particular act
of terrorism. Otherwise, they're just plain old Tim McVeigh who lives
next door, or that nice Mr Atta who's taking flying lessons.

So, let's forget the abstract noun. Let's rename this conflict the "war
on terrorists"; that sounds a bit more concrete. But, actually, the
semantics get even more obscure. What exactly does President Bush mean by
terrorists? He hasn't defined the term, so we'll have to try to work out
what he means from his actions.

Judging by those actions, the terrorists all live together in "camps" in
Afghanistan. Presumably, they spend the evenings playing the guitar and
eating chow around the campfire. In these "camps", the terrorists also
engage in "training" and stockpiling weapons, which we can obliterate
with our cluster bombs and missiles.

Nobody seems to have told the President that the horrors of September
were perpetrated with little more than a couple of dozen box-cutters. I
suppose the US could bomb all the stockpiles of box-cutters in the world,
but I have a sneaking feeling that it's still not going to eradicate
terrorists.

Besides, I thought the terrorists who crashed those planes into the World
Trade Centre were living in Florida and New Jersey. I thought the
al-Qa'eda network was operating in 64 countries, including America and
many European states - which even President Bush might prefer not to
bomb.

But no: the President, Congress, Tony Blair and pretty well the entire
House of Commons are convinced that terrorists live in Afghanistan. And
what is meant by: "We mustn't give in to the terrorists"? We gave in to
them the moment the first bombs fell on Afghanistan.

The instigators of September 11 must have been popping the corks on their
non-alcoholic champagne. They had successfully provoked America into
attacking yet another poor country it didn't previously know much about,
thereby creating revulsion throughout the Arab world and ensuring support
for the Islamic fundamentalists.

Words have become devalued, some have changed their meaning, and the
philologists can only shake their heads. The first casualty of war is
grammar.

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