There is No War on Terror

Remember the War on Drugs? A right-wing administration took an issue that had always existed, ignored the roots of the problem, and declared an open-ended war on it. This provided a convenient excuse to curtail civil liberties, lock up a lot of people, coddle dictators who might be useful in the fight, and not least, attack anyone who dared oppose the effort. Sadly, most Democrats failed to challenge the premises of that war and acquiesced in it for fear of being labeled soft.

All countries cut corners in wartime. The Bush administration wants to cut corners, so they pretend we are at war. By tying unrelated actions to 9/11, the Right can achieve aims they never could have justified independently: invading and occupying Iraq, expanding government spying powers with the Patriot Act, freeing U.S. forces from that pesky Geneva Convention, continuing to increase an already obscene military budget, and slashing domestic spending to compensate.

It's easy to respond to an attack on innocents with a broad denunciation of any group believed connected with the perpetrators. After the 1920 Wall Street bombing, which killed 40 and was blamed on immigrant anarchists, the Washington Post wrote "The bomb outrage in New York emphasizes the extent to which the alien scum from the cesspools and sewers of the Old World has polluted the clear spring of American democracy." A bit florid for George Bush, but the sentiment of xenophobia and American exceptionalism is the same.

As the Spectator points out in a recent editorial, terrorism is a tactic, and you can't go to war with a tactic. The U.S. has long been a terror target, most horrifically on 9/11 but also in the Oklahoma City bombing, the Unabomber case, the anthrax attacks, Pan Am flight 103 and earlier. A rational response to 9/11 would involve securing dangerous nuclear and biological materials, reexaming U.S. Middle East policy and our relations with oppressive Arab regimes, and improving intelligence efforts. Instead the Bush regime relies on war rhetoric and endless military action.

There are a lot of people out there who hate us. Some have good reasons, some have bad reasons, some are just crazy. Declaring war only provides more reasons, provokes the crazy to contemplate even more violent actions, and debases our own society. Liberals should not adopt the war rhetoric, but more importantly we should not fall for the idea of a never-ending struggle against an ill-defined enemy.