The Osterley Times: We are not "at war".

Fareed Zakaria has a very good article over at The Washington Post which raises many questions about Bush's claims to be a "war time President" and the extraordinary powers which he has claimed that this position entitles him to.

But, as Zakaria points out, with the exception of Jimmy Carter almost every American President has been involved in armed conflict somewhere. As an example, he states: "Bill Clinton initiated hostilities in the Balkans twice, George H.W. Bush invaded Panama and Iraq, and neither president ever described himself as a "war president.""

And this is undeniably true. For any American president, protecting US interests across the globe, armed intervention somewhere is almost the norm.

Britain was in a somewhat similar position in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a result, British forces were fighting someone, somewhere for most of that period. But Britain did not think of itself as "at war," nor would British prime ministers have described themselves as "wartime" leaders. (In fact, Tony Blair has never described himself as such, even though he presided over British military involvement in the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq.)

America (and before it, Britain) has felt it was "at war" when the conflict threatened the country's basic security—not merely its interests or its allies abroad. This is the common-sense way in which we define a wartime leader, and by that definition the politicians in charge during World Wars I and II—Wilson, Lloyd George, Roosevelt, Churchill—are often described as such. It's not a perfect definition. The United States has been so far removed from most conflicts that even World War I's effects could be described as indirect (incorrectly in my view). But it conjures up the image of a threat to society as a whole, which then requires a national response.

By any of these criteria, we are not at war.

Of course, this is one of the reasons why Bush claims that, "We fight them over there, so we don't have fight them here", incorrectly implying that Iraqis attempting to remove an invading and occupying force will jump into little boats and run shooting down Main Street USA unless Georgie stops them in Baghdad. It's simply a nonsense.

When nations are at war, they are called upon to make great sacrifices. I realise that during WWI and WWII that Americans at home did not have to worry about bombs falling on them as they did in London's East End, but nevertheless ordinary Americans were well aware that they were at war. For instance everyone in the US agreed on the need for high taxes to pay for the war and Roosevelt even attempted to place a 100% taxation rate on all incomes over $25,000. He failed, but it nevertheless contrasts greatly with Bush's tax cuts for the rich at the very moment when he is claiming civilisation is facing it's greatest ever peril.

In Britain and in the US there was food rationing during WWII with everyone doing their bit to see that the Nazis were defeated. As I sit later on today eating breakfast, whilst quietly reading my paper, it will be impossible to pretend that my nation is at war in the way most of us rationalise the use of that phrase.

Life in America today is surprisingly normal for a country with troops in two battle zones. The country may be engaged in wars, but it is not at war. Consider as evidence the behavior of our "war president." Bush recently explained that for the last few years he has given up golf, because "to play the sport in a time of war" would send the wrong signal. Compare Bush's "sacrifice" to those made by Americans during World War II, when most able-bodied men were drafted, food was rationed and industries were commandeered to produce military equipment. For example, there were no civilian cars manufactured in the United States from 1941 to 1945.

Bush, and the Republicans in general, have seized on this claim that the US is "at war" as a way of calling into the question the patriotism of anyone who opposes them, but it is hard to believe that they remain serious about such a claim.

As Zakaria points out, their real enemy - al Qaeda - are actually fighting a war against modernity rather than the US and they are a ragtag bunch of falling numbers. And the notion that a couple of thousand Muslims dotted around Afghanistan and the Middle East offers as great a threat to civilisation as Hitler's marauding armies is fanciful at best and, at worst, simply duplicitous.

Bush has inflated the threat because it suited him politically to do so. McCain is campaigning on continuing this approach.

But how you see the world determines how you will respond, and the administration has greatly inflated the threat, casting it as an existential and imminent danger. As a result, we've massively overreacted. Bush and his circle have conceived of the problem as military and urgent when it's more of a long-term political and cultural problem. The massive expansion of the military budget, the unilateral rush to war in Iraq, the creation of the cumbersome Department of Homeland Security, the new restrictions on visas and travel can all be chalked up to this sense that we are at war. No cost-benefit analysis has been done. John Mueller points out that in response to a total of five deaths from anthrax, the U.S. government has spent $5 billion on new security procedures.

Of course, this is actually what Osama bin Laden hoped for.

As Gandhi once stated, "Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary." Gandhi for many years took long - much publicised - walks to make salt in India, which was against the law, hoping to force the British to overreact. When asked what he would do if the British didn't react, Gandhi replied that he would do something else until they did react, stating "They are not in charge, we are".

Terrorism works under a similar principle. Bin Laden hoped to goad Bush into some rash action and Bush complied by invading Iraq, a country which had nothing to do with 9-11. Bin laden, no doubt, hoped that this would cause such outrage that Muslims everywhere would rise to his cause. Some did.

Today of all days we all remember that four young men from Leeds, three years ago, travelled down to London and caused the worst terrorist attacks in this city's history.

But they had never met bin Laden. They had never had any contact with al Qaeda. Bin Laden had floated an idea and those young guys from Leeds, enraged by Bush and Blair's invasion of Iraq, had responded. It's Kentucky Fried Chicken terrorism. It's a franchise. You sign up of your own accord without any real contact with the person floating the original idea.

There are many ways to win wars of ideas and an actual war is rarely one of them. Indeed, actual wars are the kind of over reaction that bin Laden is hoping for to get Muslims to sign up to his insanely unpopular cause.

The British Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken MacDonald, made this point eloquently in January of last year:

"London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, 'soldiers'. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a 'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on drugs'.

"The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement."

Bush's massive overreaction plays into bin Laden's hands. We are engaged in an ideological struggle, not a war. As I eat breakfast this morning in leafy west London, I will remember that.

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