Liquid fear

Ever see that Itchy and Scratchy short on the Simpsons where they fight against each other with bigger and bigger guns, until eventually they're firing six-shooters the size of the globe over the edge of the horizon at each other?

This morning I woke up at like 5:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. I tossed and turned and petted the cats and tossed some more and went to the bathroom and then finally at 7am, knowing I was done for and that I needed to get my blood going so I'd have energy to last the day, I went for a run. I got home (having only stopped to walk twice!), and as I was rehydrating furiously and stretching carefully I turned on the news, as I often like to do in the morning before work... get a sense of the shape of the world for the day.

What came up, of course, was the news of the terrorist plot to bomb planes leaving Heathrow airport in London that were bound for the US (from what I understand, primarily NY, DC, and LA). Switching alternately between CTV, CNN, and CBC (I like to try to get a balanced perspective), I discovered all the terrible details and the new restrictions imposed on travellers (i.e. no carry-on luggage and absolutely no liquid), and that it had been discovered that terrorists had now learned to mix together chemicals and come up with clear liquid explosives that might pass for hair gel or something, and could then be carried on and used to blow up planes.

You know all this, of course, but what I suddenly realized was that this "War on Terror" is really only so much rhetoric because terror, almost by definition, does not have a nationality or a governing body, and so even if you detroyed all the terrorists on the planet today, tomorrow twice as many would show up to take their place. And so we have this reactionary snowball effect... which serves the purposes of the US war machine perfectly, because from what I can tell this could be a perpetual threat: terrorists attack, nations react, terrorists attack again, nations react more... etc. In fact, it's all being played out rather metafictionally with Israel and Lebanon right now, like the play in Hamlet or the play within a play within a play in Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Or like actual Old Testament events being seen as a foreshadowing of things to come in the New Testament.

I'll say this: the "war on terror" is brilliant. Whoever suddenly realized the potential for the incredible longevity of the thing is genius, and then (whether or not it was purposely manufactured) 9/11 happened and made it possible for the wheels to be set in motion, and now here we are, 5 years on, with no end in sight (on the contrary, all we can foresee is declaration after declaration of new enemies in this war "against the enemies of freedom" e.g. North Korea, Iran, Syria...). Mine was the first generation in ages to grow up without war, and now - particularly now that our daughter will be born in October - I worry that the next generation will not know anything but.