But
Do you understand which two things the highlighted "but" is expressing contrast between?
Context:
The powerful machinery of mass propaganda is the unfortunate legacy of the twentieth century’s world wars. This has made possible unimaginable degrees of confrontation between incompatible and passion-laden ideologies that resemble the crusades of the long-distant past. Often religious, these confrontations are also based on tribal and ethnic differences, as evinced in the Yugoslav Wars. The current war on terror is directed at the religious extremists who threaten the security of the western allies, in particular the USA. But the late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century civil wars in Rwanda, Lebanon, and Afghanistan, the examples cited here among the many, many possible examples, are, in their own right, wars of terror and, in the case of the latter country, linked to the larger crusade, the US-led war on terror. Experience of these wars of terror on the part of observers and participants has resulted in a range of art that has been both officially commissioned and personally motivated, as we see below.
Top answer
It is not clear. I think the writer considers the "current 'war on terror'" to have that name in an almost official sense, the" War on Terror". I think "but" is meant to imply that certain other wars are just as much wars on terror as the one against those who "threaten the security of the western allies" and are just as deserving of the name.
- It is not clear.
- I think the writer considers the "current 'war on terror'" to have that name in an almost official sense, the" War on Terror".
- I think "but" is meant to imply that certain other wars are just as much wars on terror as the one against those who "threaten the security of the western allies" and are just as deserving of the name.
- But the analogy fails, because a war "on" terror is not a war "of" terror, so I am at something of a loss.
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It is not clear. I think the writer considers the "current 'war on terror'" to have that name in an almost official sense, the" War on Terror". I think "but" is meant to imply that certain other wars are just as much wars on terror as the one against those who "threaten the security of the western allies" and are just as deserving of the name. But the analogy fails, because a war "on" terror i
0The contrast seems to be between "Wars ON Terror" (as in the USA's position) vs "Wars OF Terror" (as in the civil wars within the countries mentioned).
This contrast is unclear because ON vs OF changes the meaning.
0
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