Monty Python weighs in on 9-11

[barbara100 at jps.net]

It was a pretty entertaining day on the P-List, but this post was my
favorite.  I wonder if the "for the war" side's got anything this cute and
clever. Monty Python...Ha!

----- Original Message -----
From: Toby G Levy <tobylevy at juno.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 10:14 AM
Subject: Monty Python weighs in on 9-11


> 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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