We Are Not At War

It's the pat answer, the four word phrase that is the other side of the coin from "9/11." It is the verbal mechanism meant to put critics of the president's war in Iraq on the defensive, George W.'s trump card whenever our liberties are eroded, our domestic priorities shoved aside, our basic decency closeted in favor of "enhanced interrogation" methodology.

He smiles into the crowd or the camera, and with the air of an explanation of the obvious to a small child he says "We are at war."

No, Mr. President, YOU are at war -- you and your cadre of Cheneys and Rumsfelds. If WE were at war, we would have been asked to sacrifice, to give of ourselves materially and emotionally as we have in wars past. Certainly we would have had more asked of us by you than to continue shopping. Shopping!

The devil is in the details, and a close look at your conduct of this "war" shows no real commitment of your soul, no summoning of the soul of America -- just a half-hearted deployment of military resources and a concentration of power in the executive branch to stifle debate and dissent. What motivated you to go to war in Iraq has still never been revealed. It certainly wasn't the noble-sounding fiction of WMDs under Saddam Hussein's control.

If this were really "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century and the calling of our generation," as you put it in your address to the nation on the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, there would not be a higher priority given to continued consumer spending to keep economic numbers up than to sacrifice for the greater good. Give up basics like "the greatest generation" did with nylons in the '40s? Heavens, that would be bad for business! Just wave a flag on your porch, watch Fox News, and be scared when we want you to go along with the next shenanegans - that's all we ask of you.

This country is better than you've asked it to be, Mr. Bush. The lip service you've paid to war betrays the shaky rationale behind the Iraq misadventure, which continues to bleed the real war front in Afghanistan dry, not to mention domestic issues like, say, the SCHIP program. You may have fooled the country into invading Iraq, but you can't lead it in a war on terror if, instead of asking for its help, you continuously try and scare it to death. Oh, and tell it to keep going to the malls.