The war on abstract nouns

The phrase "the War on" followed by an abstract noun (usually with a capital letter to show that it is Important) has taken on the status of a snowclone. It's everywhere. Browsing the first few pages of results after googling "The War on" reveals that there are wars on terror, crime, poverty, drugs, global warming, freedom. religion, greed, waste, inefficiency, sedition, piracy, democracy, obesity, hunger and even fornication.

This is a very fine example of a discussion we've been having over at wordcraft concerning how far it is possible for words to shape reality. Every single one of the above examples is creating a false analogy. They are giving the impression that it is possible to wage a war against a concept. It isn't. To take just one of them: you might wage war against criminals but you cannot wage war against crime. Of course what happens is that by setting up such a false analogy you can justify almost anything in its name. If you had a war on criminals you would have to act against criminals. If you have a war on crime you can then justify draconian measures against all individuals on the grounds that you need to take those measures to prevent crime. You can remove civil liberties, imprison without trial, burn books and ban the Internet in the name of your war on crime and you never need take any action whatsoever against any actual criminals because.. well hey, this isn't about criminals, it's about crime.

Ditto for terror, ditto for waste, in fact ditto for all of the examples. When you start to "wage war" on abstract and possibly indefinable concepts then you don't have to have any rational logic to your actions. So, in the case of the war on terror, sorry, I meant the War on Terror, you can impose whatever sanctions you like on whoever you don't like and say that it was necessary. You don't need to catch or convict or even look for a single terrorist.

This phrasing is doublespeak at its pernicious best.