It may seem a trifle, but I'm tired of hearing about our "war president," the "war on terror," the "war in Afghanistan" and the "war in Iraq." Without a declaration of war, our country cannot be at war. War is too serious a term to be dumbed down into a marketing slogan designed to raise our anger and keep politicians in power. Either declare war or stop killing and occupying foreign countries. The choice is supposed to be ours.
I'd imagine there would be some embarrassment over the declaration of war against Iraq since the main reasons provided in such a declaration would not have stood the test of time. All those Powell slides at the U.N. look pretty silly when none of them appear to validate our intelligence. Written declarations can't flip flop reasons as easily as the Bush cabinet can.
Congress has abandoned its power to declare wars. The media have abandoned their role in questioning authority and violence with its promotion of Orwell's Newspeak. People aren't liberated, and their government is not sovereign when a foreign army occupies their land without their consent. Iraqis are fighting and dying. Iraqis live in a bombed out region with the threat of violence hanging over them like particularly nasty sand cloud. Iraqis don't control their government, their police or their military.
The U.S. is not truthfully at war right now. Perhaps our democracy shouldn't point fingers elsewhere when we allow one branch to usurp powers that rightfully belong to another, one that would have required the consent of the people instead of under cover of secrecy. If the government is of, by and for the people, why are the people not trusted with the information necessary to know what is being done in its good name?
Those fighting Americans don't hate us. They hate that we can't control our own actions through the democracy we tout. This is a great country when we focus on liberty, justice and economics. But it's simply awful that our great nation is being sullied by injustice, occupation, lies and death.
On a related note, these pseudo-wars have traditionally not gone well for the United States. Vietnam, Serbia, Somalia and the love fest in the Holy Land have not fared well. The government has used these terms with the "war on poverty" or the "war on drugs," and these marketing battles have been big losers, too. They cost a lot of money and lives with very little to show for it. It's all theater.
As for the war on drugs, the government tells us we are winning them, and they point to new drug busts as proof. But if the drug busts are setting records (biggest marijuana or cocaine or heroin bust ever is usually touted on the news), doesn't that imply that they are losing the war? If the quantities are going up, it means that more drugs are being transacted than ever before. Instead of secretly moving small quantities, they are moving huge quantities. It sounds like a losing game, not a successful war.
We hear we're going to win the war in Iraq from the same government, yet the number of insurgents seems to be increasing, with more outbreaks across greater parts of the country. What is wrong with those Iraqis that after a recent bombing that killed 22, including women and children, they just don't love our peace and democracy?