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| The Alliance |
| Is it "war" or "an emergency"? Who cares? |
| 2001-10-31 |
Historian Sir Michael Howard: "To 'declare war' on terrorists, or even more illiterately, on 'terrorism' is at once to accord them a status and dignity that they seek and which they do not deserve. It confers on them a kind of legitimacy. Do they qualify as 'belligerents'? If so, should they not receive the protection of the laws of war? This was something that Irish terrorists always demanded, and was quite properly refused. But their demands helped to muddy the waters, and were given wide credence among their supporters in the United States. "But to use, or rather to misuse the term 'war' is not simply a matter of legality, or pedantic semantics. It has deeper and more dangerous consequences. To declare that one is 'at war' is immediately to create a war psychosis that may be totally counter-productive for the objective that we seek. It will arouse an immediate expectation, and demand, for spectacular military action against some easily identifiable adversary, preferably a hostile state; action leading to decisive results. Bet Bush, Powell and Rumsfeld wish they could be as 'brilliant' as this pedant. It must be really difficult to be an arm-chair general. If you have nothing to offer but quibbles over whether we're "at war" or "in an emergency" then shut up and get out of the way. At the moment we're "war psychotics." |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |