A selection from the Whizzo Quality Assortment
Columnist and former Python Terry Jones is interviewed at Salon:
One of the strange manipulations of language you get into is that the war on terror is a war on an abstract noun.
“An abstract noun can’t surrender; it can’t do anything really. How do you know when you’ve won? When the noun gets kicked out of the Oxford English Dictionary? But that’s a very useful tool for politicians, to declare an unwinnable war. They can keep it going as long as they like. They can decide when it’s won.
Now, you could say that we declared war against Fascism in World War II, but that was only a pseudonym for Nazi Germany. In this case, we have no idea who we’re fighting. It’s the first time, I think, that a major country has gone to war and not known who the enemy was. Who are they? We have no idea.”
