What is it good for?

Veteran reporter Helen Thomas gave Scott McClellan fits lately, as the pathetic mouthpiece twisted himself into knots sounding more and more ridiculous as he kept sputtering. He kept whimpering back to his failsafe talking point, though--"we're at war."

War. The war on terror, the global war on religious extremism, or as Edwin Starr said, "War, huh, yeah , what is it good for, absolutely nothing say it again, y'all." But are we at war?

The term war has both popular and political connotations. We toss it about lightly, saying it was a war out there in describing a sporting event to a war of words to the war on drugs to Bill O'Reilly's absurd "war on Christmas."

It of course also has a legal and political aspect, as it is a condition mentioned in the constitution and recognized at international law. But where are we now? Well, obviously, we have soldiers dying weekly in Iraq, but are we at "war?" And if so, with whom? Iraq has had "elections" but as of yet has no "government." We invaded the country unlawfully and are engaged in a military occupation, which suggests that we are at war with--the Iraqi people? Poll results would certainly suggest so.

But as to the "war on terror?" We can laugh at it, as does Terry Jones of Monty Python fame, who says that "what really alarms me about President Bush's 'War on Terrorism' is the grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? How is 'Terrorism' going to surrender? It's well known, in philological circles, that it's very hard for abstract nouns to surrender." We can also recognize the sad truth within Jones' humor that this so-called "war" can go on for as long as our leaders desire because it has no endgame. No defined, enemy, no defined objective, and as Jean-Paul Sartre posited, "No Exit"--or hell.

Let's place this in domestic terms. Let's say, completely hypothetically, that a deranged piece of white trash decided to blow up a federal building because he hated the "gummit." Are we then at "war" with white trash? No, INDIVIDUALS committed CRIMES and were dealt with accordingly--hypothetically, that is. I seriously doubt that we as a people would have willingly embraced violations of our civil liberties in order to catch a native-born psychopath.

This is a POLICE matter. I mean that not in terms of Adam-12 (for those of you of a certain age) but in a general sense of we need to act to prevent CRIMINAL activity and to apprehend CRIMINALS. There is a role for the military here, but our military is being abused. The troops are asked to do things for which they are not trained or equipped, and major portions of the military, the reserves and the National Guard, have been gutted. Recruitment is down, and in a very disturbing trend, the younger officers, the captains and majors, are leaving in droves. Factor in billions of dollars worth of equipment destroyed, and cue Edwin Starr.

I can give you definitions of war, from Sun-Tzu to UN treaties, but that would be fruitless. So too is what I ask for at the end here from our leaders on this subject--a little honesty.