We are not at war.
Feb. 22nd, 2006 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
barking_iguanaWe are engaged in two major conflicts; neither of which can rightly be called a war.
The conflict generating the most casualties and headlines is in Iraq. There we are an occupying colonial power. Yes, our government says (and probably really means) that it would like to relinquish this colony once a suitably compliant and self-sufficient client state can be set up. But in the mean time, we are a colonial power. And like most colonial empires, we must deal with ongoing restlessness on the part of the natives. That restlessness will keep on going for as long as our occupation keeps on going. It may get worse and better in turns, but it will not stop until we stop.
But that restlessness includes no armies ready to take the field against us, no unifying command structure, no one with the authority to issue a general surrender, no one to reach a peace agreement with. It's more akin to an ongoing riot than to what the framers or anyone else in world history meant by a war.
The second conflict is against al-Qaida. A bunch of vagabond zealots who, again, have no army, are no longer centralized enough to surrender, and will in one form or another be around for generations. Regardless of whether you think a traditional anti-terrorist law enforcement strategy is the best way to combat them, they are criminals rather than an entity that it is possible to go to war against. We're very good at wars. If it was possible to annihilate them in one, we would have already done so. We already beat them in a war, depriving them of a secure base in Afghanistan, but that's as far as war can take us.
Why does it matter whether we call these conflicts wars? Because we make both constitutional and customary exceptions to the limits of government power in times of war. But those exceptions are meant to be just that: exceptions. And our current state is not exceptional unless our government chooses to make it so. Since terrorism will never go away, the war against terror may be proclaimed and renounced at will, any time the government wants to ignore the checks and balances that keep us a free society. Similarly, the conflict in Iraq may last for 30 years. It just depends on how long our government wants to maintain the colony. That is not what is meant by "in times of war."
The conflict generating the most casualties and headlines is in Iraq. There we are an occupying colonial power. Yes, our government says (and probably really means) that it would like to relinquish this colony once a suitably compliant and self-sufficient client state can be set up. But in the mean time, we are a colonial power. And like most colonial empires, we must deal with ongoing restlessness on the part of the natives. That restlessness will keep on going for as long as our occupation keeps on going. It may get worse and better in turns, but it will not stop until we stop.
But that restlessness includes no armies ready to take the field against us, no unifying command structure, no one with the authority to issue a general surrender, no one to reach a peace agreement with. It's more akin to an ongoing riot than to what the framers or anyone else in world history meant by a war.
The second conflict is against al-Qaida. A bunch of vagabond zealots who, again, have no army, are no longer centralized enough to surrender, and will in one form or another be around for generations. Regardless of whether you think a traditional anti-terrorist law enforcement strategy is the best way to combat them, they are criminals rather than an entity that it is possible to go to war against. We're very good at wars. If it was possible to annihilate them in one, we would have already done so. We already beat them in a war, depriving them of a secure base in Afghanistan, but that's as far as war can take us.
Why does it matter whether we call these conflicts wars? Because we make both constitutional and customary exceptions to the limits of government power in times of war. But those exceptions are meant to be just that: exceptions. And our current state is not exceptional unless our government chooses to make it so. Since terrorism will never go away, the war against terror may be proclaimed and renounced at will, any time the government wants to ignore the checks and balances that keep us a free society. Similarly, the conflict in Iraq may last for 30 years. It just depends on how long our government wants to maintain the colony. That is not what is meant by "in times of war."
