Are We At War?

Seems like a simple question, but one that doesn't seem to have a ready answer. I mean, if you ask the President, he'd say, "Yes, of course we are!" but then he readily accepts the Supreme Court's Hamdan decision, which clearly allows the Court and the Congress to set limits not specified in the Constitution the President's powers as Commander-in-Chief during a time of war. So, the president believes we are at war, but not enough to actually defend his Constitutional right and duty to prosecute a war as he sees fit. Bush see the threat, knows how to fight it, but refuses to make the case.

The loyal opposition seems to think that we are at war, but only in a "War on Poverty" or "War on Drugs" sense of the thing-- we should throw more money at it, and make more speeches about it, but not actually, like, fight, like in a war or anything. To them, the War on Terror should be fought as was the Cold War, politically, covertly and legally when possible. The loyal opposition sees the threat, misidentifies it (willingly or unwillingly, I don't know) and thinks that if we just do it the way we did for 50 years, there will be peace... uneasy, punctuated by violence, but peace, nonetheless.

If we are at war, then everything from the TSP to the PATRIOT Act is completely legal; the editorial board of the New York Times needs to be arrested and charged with espionage at the least, treason at the worst. Politicians who decry the war publicly should be ostracized at the very least, and possibly charged with aiding and abetting in some extreme cases.

If we are not at war, then the president and most of his administration needs to be impeached and removed. The TSP must be terminated immediately. Troops must begin an immediate withdrawl from Iraq and our Afghanistan mission must be scaled back to encompass merely the capture of those responsible for 9-11-01.

Under the Constitution, only the United States Congress can declare war. The President of the United States has interpreted the Authorization for the Use of Force passed by Congress in October of 2002 as a de facto declaration of war. It would be a good thing for Congress to clarify this, one way or the other, either by disputing the claim of the President and completely de-funding the Iraq war or by clarifying the resolution and solidifying the President's position. This would require, in either case, tough leadership and hard decisions from those elected to represent the People of the United States of America.

I'm not holding my breath.