On War

War is armed conflict between nations. War is people dying from bullets and grenades and bombs and mustard gas and napalm. War is about control of physical territory.

The War on Drugs, the War on Terror, and George W Bush’s status as a “war president” are nothing more than propaganda. There is no nation of Drugs that can be conquered, no country of Terror that is attempting to topple our government. These are a different class of problem than wars, and it does us no good to think of them as war.

Drugs are a matter of supply and demand, not an enemy invasion: if you want to deal with drug problems, you need to get people to stop wanting them so much that they’ll make drug dealers rich to get their fix.

Terrorism is practiced by desperate people who believe they have no more sane way to advance their cause: dealing with it using the metaphor of war dignifies them, implicitly giving them the status of a nation, rather than treating them as a group of criminals. (Making more sane ways to advance causes clearly available might even help prevent groups from turning terrorist in the first place.)