A WAR ON 'WAR'

A war on 'war' In response to Tony Phillips' commentary "A war worth
winning" ["Because I Said So," Dec. 20], the essence of his article
is noble, but his call to action is inappropriate. The choice to use
the war metaphor is naive and in bad taste. Liberal commentators know
that wars cause death, suffering, destruction and numerous other
negative consequences--even when the term war is used as a metaphor.

I find it odd that Phillips referenced a slue of wars that have not
obtained their objectives--"the war on terror," "the drug war," wars
on aggression, imperialism, totalitarianism and ethnic cleansing. He
even made a reference to the Vietnam War. None of these wars has been
ultimately successful. The war on terror is unwinnable and has been
credited for creating more terrorism. The drug war is a failure; it
has caused more harm than good. As many progressive thinkers have
noted, it is not a war on drugs but a war on people. War has not rid
the world of aggression, imperialism, totalitarianism or ethnic cleansing.

I wonder what Phillips imagined when he invoked a "full-scale war" on
poverty. Did he picture tanks rolling over the bodies of poor people?
Did he imagine smart bombs educating impoverished people on how to
build credit? Did he envision secret prisons torturing poverty until
it confessed to what cave in Afghanistan the top-poverty-official was
hiding in?

Obviously Phillips did not imagine these scenarios, but the term war
is explicitly bonded to violence.

Phillips acknowledged that President Johnson launched an unsuccessful
"war on poverty," and Phillips blamed the Vietnam War for the
petering out of the "war on poverty." This assertion is not entirely
accurate; there was a plethora of reasons for the demise of Johnson's
"war on poverty," too many to discuss here.

To put it succinctly, we cannot combat poverty through the lens of
war, even if it is just a metaphor. Poverty is, unfortunately,
incredibly abundant. Phillips' generalization of homeless people,
"people are homeless because they are poor," was coupled with
acknowledging that there are plenty of reasons for individuals to be
impoverished. It is absolutely righteous to work to prevent/end
poverty; sadly, though, it is presumably an unbeatable fact of life.
Certainly it will not be ended through war.

Since we chose to have a war on terror, we have enlisted a mechanism
that is great at war--our military. Now we are stuck in Iraq, trying
to spread democracy with the wrong tool. If we had been more
thoughtful as to how we were going to deal with terrorism we wouldn't
be in the nation-building Iraq quagmire.

Since we chose to have a war on drugs, we have enlisted an aggressive
police force to enforce drug laws on our own citizens. The
consequence is that proportionally we put more of our citizens in
jail/prison than any other First World nation, yet drug use is just
as prevalent today as it was when Nixon launched the drug war.

I long for a day when our leaders (and liberal commentators) abolish
war and the war metaphor. Poverty is an enemy, but it is more like
cancer than an opposing army. We don't have a full-scale war on
cancer--because we can't bomb cancer out of existence. But we do have
a "race for a cure."

In the future, Mr. Phillips, when you are feeling inspired to evoke
support for the needy, please choose your terms more cautiously.
Let's find a "cure."

Randy Hencken

Golden Hill)