No - not Government. Terrorism!
I was thinking for a while now, how to counter that "War on Terror" catch-phrase. Make no mistake. It's a powerful one. It's probably the most powerful tool of deception left to this administration.
It still resonates deeply with very positive emotions of heroism, dedication, protecting your loved ones, service for your country, helping others and general sacrifice for the greater good .
But - could "Starve the Beast" actually work to counter that?
I was sure, that this "counter-catch-phrase" would need to acknowledge the threat while suggesting a better and more efficient way to deal with it. Which - in my view - meant professional and coordinated international police work (as demonstrated in the foiled London plane bombing plot). To achieve this, the phrase would need to get the notion of "Terrorism" back to the idea of a capital crime conducted by individuals (as opposed to a faceless bunch of national, racial or religious origin - which, sooner than later, would encompass innocent civilians and make them targets of war too).
In the process of mulling over it, I came up with the following counter-phrases:
"Fight against Terrorists"
"Debase the Terrorists"
"Contain, Disonnect and Debase the Terrorists".
"Contain, Disconnect and Debase. Starve the Beast"
"Debase the Terrorists. Starve the Beast".
"Starve the Beast".
I really like the last one. We could finally stop putting lame surrogate phrases against their killer phrases. We could try to capture and supersede theirs with a different and better meaning, and put an end to their name-twisting (after all "Beast" should better be likened to "Terrorism" than "Government" shouldn't it?).
Basically I started with "Fight against Terrorists" in the hope that this phrase could carry two points. (1) The fact, that we should concentrate again on individual capital crimes. (2) In replacing "war" with "fight" I hoped to break that implication, that the "War on Terror" is about an noble and ambitious yet achievable goal, which is well worth the sacrifice.
Didn't work well in my opinion, because although "Terrorists" hints at individuals, it's to close to "Terrorism" to make the point. Moreover, it doesn't carry the point that we need to separate the real terrorists from the ordinary people of the same religion or region. Third, "fight" doesn't counter "war" effectively, because "fight" leaves the impression that it could drag on with no end in sight, whereas "war" still suggests a conclusive end.
Which led me to "Debase the Terrorists". Now that was meant to carry the point, that the terrorists must be separated as individuals from and reaped of their backing in the populace, if you want to succeed.
Downside, I felt, was that "debase" could be understood as physically driving them out of their bases (which would actually support ongoing Operations "Whatever" in Anbar province or the recent Israeli invasion into Lebanon). And it didn't suggest that we are well prepared to fend off any terrorist plots meanwhile (so much for "weak on national defense").
To avoid that backfire, I came up with "Contain, Disconnect and Debase the Terrorists". Obvious downside is that it's too long. But otherwise it carries that we (1) support defending ourselves against terrorist plots by professional police work, (2) that the fight is about disconnecting the terrorists from their support in the populace (which means not humiliating or killing ordinary people, but give them opportunities and help them lead a decent life without the support of Hamas, Hezbollah or others) and (3) that the fight would lead to a conclusive end, where the terrorists eventually are debased from their supporters and can efficiently dealt with as individuals, who are conducting individual capital crimes.
So I had a basically correct statement, that didn't quite catch on. Not good.
Thinking about "disconnect and debase" those notorious "Starve the Beast" came to my mind - but I was not yet ready to let it stand alone.
So I came up with "Contain, Disconnect and Debase the Terrorists. Starve the Beast", which didn't quite work, because "Beast" obviously should relate to "Terrorism" which would have required me to drop the strong hint of individual responsibility.
So that led me to "Debase the Terrorists. Starve the Beast", which seemed to avoid that potential misconception about driving terrorists out of their bases by military force (strange way of "starving"). So "debase" could work in that context, because it might now imply that necessary step-by-step disconnect from their supporter's base.
Which eventually led me to asking "Why not capture and supersede" their killer catch-phrase and give it a decent meaning?
While I'm quite sure, that "Starve the Beast" as such wouldn't work, I could imagine that used in conjunction with one of the longer phrases above might actually work.
Just dreaming.
Whadda you think?