The War on Terrorism was built on foundations of intellectual dishonesty. At worst, it was a pretext for continued military spending and deployment, iterated with a ferocity that waxed in precisely inverse proportion to the rapidly emerging evidence of its inefficacy in preventing terrorism. Its lineal descendants – initiatives to “counter” or “prevent violent extremism” have, likewise tended to grind remorselessly on, including in the fields of information and communication, despite having no evidential basis for expectation of success, even on their own terms.