"I consider Bush's decision to call for a war against terrorism a serious mistake. He is elevating these criminals to the status of war enemies, and one cannot lead a war against a network if the term war is to retain any definite meaning"
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Habermas is doing what he does best: policing the language of public life the way a structural engineer inspects load-bearing beams. Call it a "war", and the metaphor doesn’t just decorate policy; it reorganizes it. "War" authorizes emergency powers, a friend-enemy worldview, and a moral drama that crowds out mundane legal categories like crime, evidence, jurisdiction, and proportionality. His first move is almost pedantic on purpose: terrorism is "criminal", not a sovereign opponent. That insistence is the whole argument.
The subtext is a warning about category error as political technology. By naming a diffuse network an "enemy", Bush effectively grants it the dignity of parity: the aura of a belligerent rather than the stigma of a conspiracy. Habermas hears, in that elevation, the risk of legitimizing terror’s self-mythology while simultaneously legitimizing state overreach. The phrase "if the term war is to retain any definite meaning" is a philosopher’s scalpel, but also a democratic alarm bell: once words lose their boundaries, law loses its grip.
The context is the post-9/11 scramble to translate shock into strategy. "War on Terror" worked culturally because it offered a clean script - victory, resolve, retaliation - at a moment when grief demanded clarity. Habermas argues that clarity was purchased with conceptual dishonesty. You can’t defeat an "ism" the way you defeat an army, and pretending you can invites endlessness: a permanent war footing that becomes less a response to terrorism than a new normal for governance.
The subtext is a warning about category error as political technology. By naming a diffuse network an "enemy", Bush effectively grants it the dignity of parity: the aura of a belligerent rather than the stigma of a conspiracy. Habermas hears, in that elevation, the risk of legitimizing terror’s self-mythology while simultaneously legitimizing state overreach. The phrase "if the term war is to retain any definite meaning" is a philosopher’s scalpel, but also a democratic alarm bell: once words lose their boundaries, law loses its grip.
The context is the post-9/11 scramble to translate shock into strategy. "War on Terror" worked culturally because it offered a clean script - victory, resolve, retaliation - at a moment when grief demanded clarity. Habermas argues that clarity was purchased with conceptual dishonesty. You can’t defeat an "ism" the way you defeat an army, and pretending you can invites endlessness: a permanent war footing that becomes less a response to terrorism than a new normal for governance.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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