A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

Democrat John Edwards Wednesday repudiated the notion that there is a "global war on terror," calling it an ideological doctrine advanced by the Bush administration that has strained American military resources and emboldened terrorists.

In a defense policy speech he planned to deliver at the Council on Foreign Relations, Edwards called the war on terror a "bumper sticker" slogan Bush had used to justify everything from abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison to the invasion of Iraq.

"We need a post-Bush, post-9/11, post-Iraq military that is mission focused on protecting Americans from 21st century threats, not misused for discredited ideological purposes," Edwards said in remarks prepared for delivery. "By framing this as a war, we have walked right into the trap the terrorists have set--that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war on Islam."

What is he talking about? It simply does not follow that treating the fight against terrorism as a war means "that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war on Islam." If the terrorists have set a trap of some kind, we can still walk around it by making it clear--repeatedly--that we are engaged not in a war against Islam or against another civilization, but rather against a group of people willing to subvert religion and use it for murderous purpose.

To do this requires thinking, of course, but merely because Edwards seems unwilling to cogitate his way out of the rhetorical "trap" does not mean that the rest of us cannot or will not. What are we engaged in if not a war? A tea party? A "police action"? On September 11th, no less a Democratic personage than former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke--who will be a leading candidate for Secretary of State in any future Democratic administration--stated to anyone and everyone who would listen that part of the problem we have had with terrorism is that we treated it like a police action when we should have treated it like a war. I shudder to think that less than 6 years later, we have forgotten that lesson.