This article examines how war corrupts language in order to justify its acts of violence, focusing on the emergence of troubling metaphors since the September 11, 2001 attacks and the “war on terrorism”, claiming that intellectuals should not misuse language since the understanding of situations can be structure by discourse. The author suggests that the most troublesome metaphor is the portrayal of the “war” as a clash of civilizations, pitting the West against the rest, specifically Islam.
