“It was ready-made for them to call an emergency and pretend it was war-time, you know, the war on terrorism is a metaphor, and terrorism is an abstract noun. It's like a "war on dandruff." There's no such thing, you know. It isn't war, it's just a slogan. But using the slogan they got through the U. S. A. Patriot Act, which removes many of our liberties. Nobody made a sound when we lost Habeas Corpus—due process of law—and suddenly Bush managed to get rid of it. Where was a voice on television, aside from mine, that spoke out against this? Where were all those noble jurists, those great lawyers, those lovers of liberty, where the hell were they? They were nowhere!”

— Gore Vidal

2010s, "Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia" (2013)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

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Gore Vidal 163

American writer 1925–2012

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“Ludicrous concepts…like the whole idea of a "war on terrorism". You can wage war against another country, or on a national group within your own country, but you can't wage war on an abstract noun. How do you know when you've won? When you've got it removed from the Oxford English Dictionary?”

Terry Jones (1942–2020) Welsh comedian, screenwriter, actor, film director and author

The Observer http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,901052,00.html, February 23, 2003.

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

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

“I notice in Kentucky a disposition to cry against the tyranny and oppression of our Government. Now, were it not for war you know tyranny could not exist in our Government; therefore any acts of late partaking of that aspect are the result of war; and who made this war? Already we find ourselves drifting toward new issues, and are beginning to forget the strong facts of the beginning. You know and I know that long before the North, or the Federal Government, dreamed of war the South had seized the U. S. arsenals, forts, mints, and custom-houses, and had made prisoners of war of the garrisons sent at their urgent demand to protect them 'against Indians, Mexicans, and negroes.”

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) American General, businessman, educator, and author.

1860s, 1864, Letter to James Guthrie (August 1864)

“It is time we admitted that we are not at war with "terrorism". We are at war with Islam.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, "Mired in a religious war", Washington Times (1 December 2004) http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/dec/1/20041201-090801-2582r/
2000s
Context: It is time we admitted that we are not at war with "terrorism". We are at war with Islam. This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims, but we are absolutely at war with the vision of life that is prescribed to all Muslims in the Koran. The only reason Muslim fundamentalism is a threat to us is because the fundamentals of Islam are a threat to us.

“President Bush said in his speech Monday night that the war in Iraq is "the central front in the war on terror." It's not the central front in the war on terror, but it has unfortunately become the central recruiting office for terrorists.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, NYU Speech (2004)

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

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

Achtung! Vorurteile (2003); original German: "Der Terrorismus, der im furchtbaren 11. September kulminierte, ist ein Krieg der Armen gegen die Reichen. Der Krieg ist ein Terrorismus der Reichen gegen die Armen." typically cited in short: "Terrorismus ist der Krieg der Armen und der Krieg ist der Terrorismus der Reichen."

“The Bush administration has committed the country to a new, pseudo-religious doctrine of war, endless war — for "the war on terror" is nothing less than that.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Regarding the Torture of Others (2004)

“If a passion for freedom is not in vogue, patriots may sound the alarm till they are weary.
The Act of Habeas Corpus, by which prisoners may insist on being brought to trial within a limited time, is the corner-stone of our liberty.”

Horace Walpole (1717–1797) English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician

Notes of 1758, published in Memoires of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of George the Second (1822), p. 226; also published as "Memoirs of the Year 1758" in Memoirs of King George II, Vol. III (1985), p. 10

“We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

"The Old Way of Thinking" http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Old_Way_Thinking.html, in The Progressive (November 2001)

“The vanquished know war. They see through the empty jingoism of those who use the abstract words of glory, honor, and patriotism to mask the cries of the wounded, the senseless killing, war profiteering, and chest-pounding grief.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

War: Realities and Myths http://www.antiwar.com/orig/hedges.php?articleid=6294

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