“How can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism?”

“Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.”

“Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism.”

“What really alarms me about President Bush's 'War on Terrorism' is the grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? How is 'Terrorism' going to surrender? It's well known, in philological circles, that it's very hard for abstract nouns to surrender.”

“The fact that war is the word we use for almost everything—on terrorism, drugs, even poverty—has certainly helped to desensitize us to its invocation; if we wage wars on everything, how bad can they be?”

“All the weaponry and tactics that have been deployed in the war on terror are justified by precisely the same theological stance once invoked by the war on heresy.”