It always comes back to LANGUAGE

[SoCalDem]

Because we ALLOWED him to call it a WAR, he took inappropriate powers and ran with them


He should have been slapped down when he called a response to WTC a WAR.. By allowing him to declare a vague never-ending war on a noun, we have opened ourselves up to so much shit...we haven't seen the worst of it yet..

Congress needs to get brave and rescind the "war" appellation completely.. He invaded Iraq under the auspices of the "War on Terrahhhh"..

War needs to be reserved for events when a NATION/COUNTRY attacks US ...and that's IT..

anything short of that should never be called a war..

Every nasty thing that has come after the WTC has come because of the "war"..

The towers were taken down by ruthless ideological INDIVIDUALS...not a nation/country..

Terrorism is not new...and we are not alone..nor were we the first to suffer it..

By making it WAR, we only elevated it to a loftier position and encouraged recruitment of "warriors"...on their side..

Congress must grow some spine and be ready to oppose nonsense like this.. It's bankrupted us, killed thousands of innocents and accomplished nothing.

[saltpoint]

1. You're right on language: 'war,' 'terror,' 'freedom,' etc.

And those photos.

Freak show stuff.

[papau]

2. I agree - when I spoke to various "anchors"about police action versus "war

they seemed to fall back on the fact that the Democratic Party was not using "police action".

Aaron Brown at CNN even asked what he could tell his producer to justify not using "war" - and I had no answer since CNN could not be expected to refuse the use of the term war when no other media outlet was questioning the use of the word "war".

It all comes back to having a Democratic Party with a spine - even if only a spine as approved by a focus group, it would be a nice change.

[SoCalDem]

3. Even "police action" is the wrong terminology

because it implies a NATIONAL response to individuals.

When the FALN bombings happened, we did not declare war on terror and start bombing San Juan..

These are cases for INVESTIGATION...not all out warfare..

Police Action leaves a bad taste too..Korea-VietNam...

We need to get OUT of the whole war business and start cultivating PEACE..

[helderheid]

4. Did Reagan have these same powers during the "war" on drugs?

[SoCalDem]

6. The war on drugs dovetailed nicely with the central american

massacres and the "help" we gave in Colombia/Peru/Venezuela/Haiti, etc.. It;s all connected by a single thread.. the US military...

If we have no WARS, it's hard to justify spending brazillions of dollars on war machines...and every so often we "need" a big one so all the old stuff gets used up/broken/left behind...and then we need ALL NEW stuff at 5 times the price...

Just feeding the beast..:(

[dogday]

5. And don't you think that is exactly the way this

deceiving administration planned it?????

[SoCalDem]

7. Of course they planned it this way..

If you say WAR, people get scared..they need us scared, so they can get away with the nonsense