WAR!

WAR!

WHOSE CALL IS IT?

 

President Obama and his administration have been adamant that he is not taking America back to another war in the Middle East.  Earlier this month, Secretary of State John Kerry stated, in a CNN interview, that our planned attack on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is not a war but is a “…very significant counter-terrorism operation…”

We have begun air strikes on ISIS in Iraq and now in Syria.  We are training and arming those who we hope will fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.  Some of our military generals are openly speaking out that air strikes cannot defeat ISIS and we will need to put troops on the ground if we are serious about defeating this threat against, not only our country, but many other countries around the world.

So, the question is, are we at war?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary has as the leading definition for “war” as:  “a state or period of fighting between countries or groups”.

Does a country have to agree to be at war in order to actually be at war?  The answer is, no!  If your enemy has declared war on you, you are at war whether or not you acknowledge the fact, whether or not you have formerly declared war in Congress, or whether or not you even know that the enemy has declared war on you.  It does not take both sides to agree to have a war.  If one side decides that they are going to declare war, formerly or just by their actions, their attack puts you at war with them.  You may not be fighting or opposing them.  You may not formerly agree to be at war with them.  You may, as in our case, openly state that we are not at war with the declared enemy.  But, nonetheless, you are at war!