Are we at war? I’ve been searching for an answer to that question for months now, scanning the newspapers, watching tee vee. It should be an easy question, a true/false, multiple choice at most. Instead, I keep coming up with answers that look like they belong in the essay section of a Philosophy mid-term.
Let’s start with true/false. We are at war: true. Flip on the tee vee and there’s the president talking about how we’re at war. There’s Senator Lott chastising the Democrats for being disloyal “in a time of war.” But would they know? Mr. Bush was a fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard, although he did little fighting or piloting and Mr. Lott was, well, he was a cheerleader. Those reservations aside, on the face of it, you’d have to say we’re at war.
A sure sign of a nation at war is the president asking Congress to declare war. Woodrow Wilson did it in 1917; Franklin Roosevelt did it in 1941. Since then, not so much. We didn’t declare war in Korea and we didn’t declare war in Vietnam, for political reasons. It was thought the public would not support a war, so we just referred to the bombing and napalming and dead soldiers coming home as a “police action.”
That was then, this is now. Today, every politician is eager to talk about the war. With such an eager audience, one would think President Bush would rush right up to the capitol and ask for a declaration of war. Still, there are problems. Declaring war is like applying for a job. There are forms to fill out, questions to answer. The big one is: against whom are we declaring war?
This is where we get to multiple choice. The United States has declared war on:
A – Afghanistan
B – Iraq
C – Yemen
D – Georgia (The former Soviet Republic, not the place where they make Coca-Cola.)
E – The Philippines
F – Colombia
G – All of the above
H – None of the above
The correct answer is G – All of the above and H – None of the above, sort of, with qualifications. This is where the essay section comes in. We have declared war on terrorism, which is not a nation-state so much as it’s a state of being, perhaps a state of mind. That’s where the philosophy comes in.
We have military personnel in five of the six countries I mentioned. We like five out of six countries; at least we say we do, although Dick Cheney won’t leave the airport when he visits Yemen. But there are terrorists in all those friendly countries, terrorists like Osama bin Laden, although he doesn’t matter anymore, or so they say. American military advisors have been sent to five out of six countries to help root out the terrorists. Just like El Salvador – look how well that turned out, at least for the ruling class.
The sixth country on the list, the one we don’t like, is Iraq. Iraq is part of the axis of evil, an important part. It would probably be fair to say that from the point of view of the Bush administration, Iraq is the nexus of the axis of evil. Saddam Hussein, who runs Iraq, is described as a terrorist and a sponsor of terror. We are at war with terrorism, but not with Iraq. Ten years ago, when we were also not at war with Iraq, we bombed the crap out of them.
Another sign the country is at war is the shadow government. We send top officials into hiding for weeks at a time so the terrorists won’t get them. One example is Secretary of the Army Thomas White, who used to be an Enron executive. We sent him into hiding by putting him on a military jet with his wife and flying them to Aspen, Colorado, so they could sell some property for six and half million dollars. Like the Boy Scouts say, be prepared.
This current war is a war of convenience. No draft, no gas or food rationing and the tax cuts keep on rolling. Our war of convenience is mediagenic and tests well in the polls. At this rate, it may go on forever.
War is Heck
Are we at war? I’ve been searching for an answer to that question for months now, scanning the newspapers, watching tee vee. It should be an easy question, a true/false, multiple choice at most. Instead, I keep coming up with answers that look like they belong in the essay section of a Philosophy mid-term.
Let’s start with true/false. We are at war: true. Flip on the tee vee and there’s the president talking about how we’re at war. There’s Senator Lott chastising the Democrats for being disloyal “in a time of war.” But would they know? Mr. Bush was a fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard, although he did little fighting or piloting and Mr. Lott was, well, he was a cheerleader. Those reservations aside, on the face of it, you’d have to say we’re at war.
A sure sign of a nation at war is the president asking Congress to declare war. Woodrow Wilson did it in 1917; Franklin Roosevelt did it in 1941. Since then, not so much. We didn’t declare war in Korea and we didn’t declare war in Vietnam, for political reasons. It was thought the public would not support a war, so we just referred to the bombing and napalming and dead soldiers coming home as a “police action.”
That was then, this is now. Today, every politician is eager to talk about the war. With such an eager audience, one would think President Bush would rush right up to the capitol and ask for a declaration of war. Still, there are problems. Declaring war is like applying for a job. There are forms to fill out, questions to answer. The big one is: against whom are we declaring war?
This is where we get to multiple choice. The United States has declared war on:
A – Afghanistan
B – Iraq
C – Yemen
D – Georgia (The former Soviet Republic, not the place where they make Coca-Cola.)
E – The Philippines
F – Colombia
G – All of the above
H – None of the above
The correct answer is G – All of the above and H – None of the above, sort of, with qualifications. This is where the essay section comes in. We have declared war on terrorism, which is not a nation-state so much as it’s a state of being, perhaps a state of mind. That’s where the philosophy comes in.
We have military personnel in five of the six countries I mentioned. We like five out of six countries; at least we say we do, although Dick Cheney won’t leave the airport when he visits Yemen. But there are terrorists in all those friendly countries, terrorists like Osama bin Laden, although he doesn’t matter anymore, or so they say. American military advisors have been sent to five out of six countries to help root out the terrorists. Just like El Salvador – look how well that turned out, at least for the ruling class.
The sixth country on the list, the one we don’t like, is Iraq. Iraq is part of the axis of evil, an important part. It would probably be fair to say that from the point of view of the Bush administration, Iraq is the nexus of the axis of evil. Saddam Hussein, who runs Iraq, is described as a terrorist and a sponsor of terror. We are at war with terrorism, but not with Iraq. Ten years ago, when we were also not at war with Iraq, we bombed the crap out of them.
Another sign the country is at war is the shadow government. We send top officials into hiding for weeks at a time so the terrorists won’t get them. One example is Secretary of the Army Thomas White, who used to be an Enron executive. We sent him into hiding by putting him on a military jet with his wife and flying them to Aspen, Colorado, so they could sell some property for six and half million dollars. Like the Boy Scouts say, be prepared.
This current war is a war of convenience. No draft, no gas or food rationing and the tax cuts keep on rolling. Our war of convenience is mediagenic and tests well in the polls. At this rate, it may go on forever.