The difficulty I have is with the term "war" - and apologies if this has already been discussed and I've missed it. This is actually word-related. Hmmm.

As I understand it (and the lawyers among us may well correct me if I'm wrong), "war" can only exist between equals. Usually that's between nations. War, of course, has different levels and different words to describe those levels, depending on the context and intensity of the fighting. The American Heritage Dictionary, perhaps not the most authoritative of sources, says:

war (wôr)
n.

A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.
The period of such conflict.
The techniques and procedures of war; military science.


I offer this as a source for my statement in the previous paragraph.

Anyway, I can well understand the Americans, and in particular, the politicians, characteristing the attacks as "war". Certainly, the scale of the attack was such that it didn't appear to be too much of an exaggeration on Tuesday, and I didn't give it's use a moment's thought. Like everyone else, I was too bound up in the acts and their aftermath to consider the implications of what was being said, particularly with regard to the semantics. And even now, I feel that America's leaders were entitled to use whatever terms they liked at that time.

But I think that we now have to step back a little. Unless a nation state was the proximate cause of the attacks - or substantively knew that they were being planned and failed to act to stop them - America really can't "go to war" with the perpetrator. Seeking to bring bin Laden to justice - whether through the transnational judicial system as represented by the World Court or through the somewhat less problematic, in this instance, US courts, is not an act of war. It is merely enforcing justice, using the word loosely. If the CIA is used to get bin Laden "with extreme prejudice" then the word "war" really can't be used in that context either. That is merely state-sponsored terrorism. I'm reminded of stones and glasshouses.

It may be that the US will choose to declare war on Afghanistan, although (a) I don't think that's very clever, and (b) Colin Powell seems to agree with me (he must read my emails).

I think it's about time that the mixed signals being sent through the misuse of emotive words like "war" should be sorted out. A "war against terrorism" is fine, but for America to be talking about entering into a war in the formal sense is ... what, overstating the case, somewhat?

As usual, for what it's worth, or not.



The idiot also known as Capfka ...