Am I the only one who’s confused by all the various usages of the word War? According to Bush, we are at war, but we have not declared war.
According to dictionary.com, war is:
Now, as I understand it, in order for the U.S. to officially declare war, Bush has to ask Congress to do so, which has not happened. However, Bush and others have said “We are at war.”
In World War II, we were attacked by Japan, and we declared war on them, at which point we entered military conflict with them. This year, we were attacked by terrorists, and now we’re about to enter military conflict with them and the country harboring them.
So the point that I get lost is here: What’s the difference between military conflict with and without a legal declaration of war? Is the only reason we’re not declaring war because it wasn’t a country that attacked us? Does the lack of a legal document change a war into a military conflict?
Am I the only one who thinks that this is a little odd? Doesn’t it seem like we would want clear and precise vocabulary when we’re talking about something like war? Why is Bush saying we’re at war if we’re not?
I'm a 30-year-old 
I think the confusion is the manner in which we were attacked. No single nation declares themselves responsible, so we are not exactly fighting military force against military force. Instead, "Operation Infinite Justice" (can’t help but laugh about that one) is a "war" against terrorism. So we are actually fighting against guerilla warfare, not the normal standards of conventional war. I think…
September 24th, 2001 at 11:30 am
This is a simplistic, but …"at war" is a state of being or action, essentially we are attacked or attacking."declaring war" is a legal and diplomatic formality that doesn’t necessarily match reality.For example - Pearl Harbor. Although neither Japan nor the U.S. had "declared" war on December 7th we were very clearly "at" war.Similar examples abound throughout history. Korea, VietNam, Grenada, Desert Storm, Kosovo, etc… spring to mind.
September 24th, 2001 at 12:30 pm
Naturally, Dad has said what I would have said, only ten times clearer.Basically, even though the Old Bush was happy that the Gulf War was a "great little war", we never actually declared war on Saddam Hussein. This is why we still have active operations and bases there and Iraq is still pelted by U.S. bombs on a regular basis.Also, most Presidents seem to feel there’s a stigma against being involved in a "war". It sounds a less serious if we say we’re "engaging in some military action" than "we’re going to war".
September 24th, 2001 at 9:54 pm