Are we at war?
James Carroll in the Boston Globe asks a question I've been asking myself for quite a long time: Are we at war?.... Here is the embarrassing question: Is America actually at war? We have a war president, war hawks, war planes, war correspondents, war cries, even war crimes -- but do we have war? We have war dead, but the question remains. With young US soldiers being blown up almost daily, it can seem an absurd question, an offensive one. With thousands of Iraqis killed by American firepower, it can seem a heartless question, as if the dead care whether strict definitions of ''war" are fulfilled. There can be no question that Iraq is in a state of war, and that, whatever its elements of post-Saddam sectarian conflict, the warfare is being driven from the Pentagon.But, regarding the Iraq conflict as it involves the United States, something essential is lacking that would make it a war -- and that is an enemy. ...
posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 12:53 PM
3 Comments:
Here's Bin Laden's Fatwa titled Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.
He considers it a war and he's not kidding. We should have understood him in 1996. He won't surrender. We'll have to kill him. He's follwoers sit in Gitmo for the duration.
So who exactly is our enemy? Bin Laden, certainly. But he's one person. His followers? Who are they? How do we identify them? They could be anywhere in the world.
It's meaningless to have a "war" against an uncountable number of unidentifiable people. How does one win such a "war", exactly?
It's meaningless to have a "war" against an uncountable number of unidentifiable people. How does one win such a "war", exactly?
This one's a real winner Paul. ;-)
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