Quote Originally Posted by jamstigator
I don't really like the phrase "war on terror", or "war on drugs" for that matter. Only Congress can declare war, and it hasn't, not on 'terrorists' nor on 'drugs'. So these aren't wars we're fighting, and I wish people would stop using that label. Skirmishes, battles, conflicts, okay, whatever, but not wars.

And if Congress did want to declare war, who would they even declare war on? Declarations of war have traditionally always been against sovereign nations, but there is no nation called 'Terrorism'. And if you name a specific *person* as that target in a declaration of war (Osama, for example), then if we kill Osama, would the 'war' be over? Of course not, as his number 2 would step into the leadership position and things would continue.

Also, when you are fighting a war, you have a set of realistically achievable victory conditions, and when those goals have been accomplished, the war is over, you won, and your soldiers go home. In this 'war on terror', what are those victory conditions? That no one left alive in the world will hate the Western way of life enough to perpetrate violence upon it? That's obviously not realistic. And yet...is that not our apparent goal? If so, then A) we are going about it the wrong way (more people hate us now than ever); and B) our soldiers will *never* get to come home because our goals are too unrealistic to ever come to fruition, no matter how long we wage this 'war'.
Most excellent post. Whenever the Government starts throwing around the 'War on.." catchphrase, it always means a war on it's own citizens. i.e.... you and me