Classical war is always about politics - see Vom Krieg (Clausewitz). Politics is the essence of why there is a war at all. Technically, our enemies want a different world order, one run by them, more or less along the lines of the Taliban regime in Afthanistan, writ large. I don't think it works - that is - if it could happen I think there would be great famine and depression and mass starvation. Think of Pol Pots impractical regime in Cambodia for a parallel - radical Islamic organizations are probably not competant to run the modern world. But even if they are, no one is going to like it. To quote a strange speech from a leftist (Green) German Foreign Minister (Feb 2004) "this is a war for civilization itself - a war we dare not let the US lose - so we must do whatever it takes to insure that the US does not lose." At least his vision is clear (not many on the left would put it this way). But even if we accept this view - whatever we decide to do to prevent the enemy winning this war is by definition politics. If you (like me) support the idea of the Bush administration we must isolate the enemy, especially from support in the greater Islamic world, it does not mean we should not take decisive action against the enemy. Whatever we decide to do, it must be a political decision. Properly, it should be decided by our elected and appointed political leaders (otherwise we are not united in the war effort). And it is probably not a good thing to be divided in the face of this enemy.

Perhaps we should have declared war on September 12th. If GWB had gone to congress and asked, I have no doubt he would have gotten a declaration against AQ (what's to say we have to declare war on a nation?). Perhaps it would have made the whole effort seem more real to Americans and we would have seen the need to get behind the anti-terror policies. We would have been more willing to make the sacrifices necessary.

(With a nod to Rixtex, because he said it before I had the chance) ElCid: "Traditionally, it has always been illegal to render aide and comfort to the enemy. Early in the 20th century we added the idea of sedition - of saying things that hindered our cause and/or aided the enemy cause. But we did some other things now forgotten: you could not have expressed an opinion as an American civilian male during WWI. This is because there were none (other than children). Every male in the country was legally in the US Army. [When they drafted you, they just issued orders to report to a unit, and if you failed to report, you were lawfully a diserter. But even if you had not been drafted, you were still legally a US soldier, and thus bound as all US soldiers are by military rules of conduct.] Now we fight a war much more deadly than WWI could ever have become (for the USA at least). We fight an enemy of a radically new kind. We are led by a man who knows he was a C student, and who is wise enough to have assembled a very experienced staff and cabinet. They have determined that certain things are necessary for our security and for a reasonable hope of victory in this war. They have not ended democracy (although I understand that if a nuclear weapon goes off in New York or DC or someplace like that the plan is to do just that) - and you do have the option of voting for Kerry if you prefer a different strategy and policy. Wether or not it should be a crime to oppose the essence of our policy is something worthy of debate. But I think it is clearly immoral to be a house divided in the face of such a threat. After 911 I heard a lot of {phony it turns out) sayings like "united we stand." I am ashamed of the left for not sticking to their guns (they did vote for both Afghanistan and Iraq in Congress after all). I am even more ashamed of those on the right who wish to advocate making the wartime policy "Islam is not our enemy" change. It does not matter who you like in the Administration, this is not something anyone who matters disagrees with. Such a broad consensus by those with such broad responsibility and experience, who also know the classified materials not available to everyone, ought to be respected. And I would be a lot happier if you could give this speech" ElCid, I'm guessing this might be a response to my post under the "Not as if that matters to you" title, but I can't be sure since you have this really annoying habit of changing the title of almost every single post you ever contribute which can make it difficult to tell the pedigree of the specific discussion. If so, I had a reason for saying what I did and did not in my last post. I was hoping you'd come forward more strongly with the "This is war" reasoning. My resonse to you and everyone else (and please, I hope you'll all comment): America is NOT at war. What we are at is a very long time of the President ordering us to go kill the very obvious enemies of our nation, and Congress supports these operations so the President continues to do so. I may be wrong legally in the following example, but I claim on evidence of this distinction is the fact that we are running out of Reservists and Guardsmen who can be recalled to active duty under presidential partial mobilization orders to use in these operations. I myself could only be recalled for a maximum of three and a half more months, as I've already served over 20 months on active duty since becoming a reservist (all of it since 9/11, naturally). Therefore don't bother using any legalism that depends from the body of law regarding duties, authority, conduct, etc. of civilians during a time of war. It's moot as far as I know at this point (I'm obviously caveating because I am not confident I know the law in this situation). Bring that stuff up after at least 218 + 51 grow a collective pair and do their duty to put their names on the bottom line of our first declaration of war in over 60 years. Displacedjim

The Western plutocracies have fought two types of war since birth of the modern international system. War between (mainly Western) members of the system which is regulated and tries to limit the use of violence within some normative framework and wars against non-members where little attempt has been made to domesticate the violence. These mainly colonial wars were precusors of the total war of mid-20th century onwards. (One could argue as Mark Mozwer does that basically Nazism was imperial-colonial system brought home to Europe- that is, one of the main things that distingishes the Nazis is their use of techinques of violence that countries like Britian, and France etc were willing to use on non-European populations on Europeans). These colonial wars have been traditional described as anything but proper war - since a proper war requires the enemy is a peer. By describing the 'war against terror' as being war against civilisation etc, the western plutocracies are simply dis-awowing the political nature of the conflict. Its interesting AQ makes specific policy demands: e.g US troops out of Saudi Arabia, end of US support for tyrants such as Mubarak et al... where as US and its clients tend to speak in terms of 'fighting for civilisation' etc rather vague cosmological terms- which certainly raises questions about who are the fundamentalists in this conflict. The US by not respecting Islam (whatever that means) certainly makes the it difficult for itself to win the 'war agiainst terror' but if it does respect islam it would have recognize that its enemies had a legitimate right to their enimity which would not gell with its idea that US is last best hope for humanity. So we find the Waffen SS with proven record of atrocities given Geneva convention rights but those accused of being members of being AQ or Taliban denied these rights and kangroo courts set up so the embrassment of the clossal scale of mis-mangagement of the 'war on terror' does not come into view. Don't Sun Tzu say something like you have to understand your enemy before you can defeat him... as many posts to this site make clear... there is little understand of the enemy.

Elcid, I think the lines of perspective should be scalar. If you're in a battle in Iraq being shot at by insurgents, the absolute last thing you should be concerned with is how said insurgents family and friends will feel if you kill the people shooting at you. You have no control over who they're going to consider martyrs anyway, so why masturbate about it?

Sorry, but this gets weird. "There is a misplaced belief here that because the death rate is so low, this war is more affordable and sustainable. Very wrong. I suppose on this board most are familiar with the argument for smaller bullets; that wounding an enemy soldier is better than killing him, as it takes more resources to care of the wounded than to bury the dead." If I follow your reasoning to it's conclusion then it would be much better for the US to just shoot their own wounded and with that save on resources needed to care for them. I'ld like to see you talk about that one to an amputee! "Look it's nothing personal, but you really should have been killed by your commanding officer once you got wounded, because caring for you will just take too much resources and that will create a back breaking debt for the US so that we lose the war. So why don't you do your patriotic duty and take these cyanide pills so we can save all the money needed to heal and wheelchairs. Really it's nothing personal." PS Caring for the wounded costs more resources is much more valid in the tactical (immediate) sense than in the strategic sense. In the strategic sense other factors come into play like unit morale, getting veterans back in the field opposed to training another raw reqruit, more willingness to volunteer for service, etc. Also the Korea war and Vietnam have shown that caring for the wounded can be done effectively. And neither of that war was lost because the US spent too much money on caring for the wounded. Also treating the wounded is only a small part of US expenditure in the war on terror. Most of the money is spent on other things like rebuilding Iraq, replacing expended munition, petrolium oil and lubricant supplies, buying off Afghani warlords, rebuilding the human intelligence capability (paying off informants), other efforts in the war on terror, extra hazard pay for soldiers and contracters, etc. Increasing this tiny part will not have a large effect on the total of the expenditure.

There is this tiny little problem: On Sept 12th we had not yet identified the enemy. On Sept 11th I was working in a factory in Kent Washington, one of about 130 workers on a processing line, and we heard the events live, as broadcast on the radio. When the second tower was hit, the radio announcer (who was in liberal Seattle) said he didn't want to "jump to any conclusion this might be a terrorist attack." A few minutes later, we got our first break, and a literate Nigerian asked me who I thought was behind it? I said - based on the simultanious attacks at the East African embassies - it had the marks of an attack organized by Osama bin Laden. But it was a guess, not knowledge. No one had knowledge at that point. So it was too soon to go for a declaration of war. But OBL DID declare war on us years before. So now he IS identified, I have no problem with declaring war on him and his organization(s). It might even be good politics and it might have positive legal consequences (in terms of war powers).

I am told that, while we have not used the words declaration of war, the acts of congress involved have legally put us at war. Certainly the President explicitly says we are at war. And certainly the enemy formally declared war on us, and attacked us, on numerous occasions. If the USSR had launched a nuclear strike, we never would have had time to declare war, but surely we would have been at war. I am confused by your tack here? Are you saying you think things would be different if we used the words "declaration of war?" If so, in a very marginal sense, I agree: I think it is best to be very clear. But the effects would be pretty marginal: how many liberals who oppose the undeclared war would then support the declared one? Yes, troops could be held "for the duration plus six months" - and that might be good for the DOD manning problem. But it is not really germane: this war is not going to be over soon. Forbidding generation (or generations) of men (people) from civil life may be a bad idea. The traditional solutions may not apply well to this very non-traditional form of warfare. I have no problem if we take four or five years to figure out who to declare war on? We didn't know right away. And we may not know it all now. Maybe certain countries are so involved with the terror network they can be included in the declaration?

There is one thing that may justify giving the SS Geneva Convention rights: they fought as soldiers in uniform in the field. Those rights did not prevent them from being prosecuted, imprisoned or even executed for war crimes - they only insured humane treatment and due process before being sentenced. The Taliban - here used loosely and far too broadly for all the radical Islamic groups formally fighting - seem not to have uniforms to wear - and otherwise uninterested in limiting the contest to legitimate military objectives and targets. You seem to operate from a peculiar point of view - a sort of third view - neither on the side of the terrorists nor on the side of the rest of the world. This is rather foolish - OBL explicitly operates on the principle Jesus enunciated "either you are for us or you are against us." If you are not willing to submit to his rule, you are the enemy, and as much subject to his sanction as the rest of us. At least the Green's in Germany have figured out they cannot afford for us to lose the war - because us includes them. Why have you not figured it out?

I also have a question: do you believe it is an option to allow OBL/AQ to win? That is, should we accede to their demands, and presumably then to the next series of demands they then would make, ad infinitum? If we did that, would not civilization itself in the present tense sense end? Would not then most of the population of the world die, not of war, but of starvation? Are the Green's wrong to call it a war for civilization itself? If so, how?