No civilians in this war roll bandages, plant Victory Gardens or observe "meatless Tuesdays." Nobody has been asked to buy a war bond. There's a disconnect between what we're told and what we see. "A state of war can be justified for several reasons," writes James Fallows in Atlantic magazine. "It might be the only way to concentrate the nation's resources where they are needed. It might explain why people are being inconvenienced or asked to sacrifice. It might symbolize that the entire nation's effort is directed toward one goal."
We're asked to endure none of the above. After the Twin Towers fell, the president encouraged us to go shopping. The government, like the rest of us, continues to spend money as if nobody had ever heard of a war. Budgetary discipline is an oxymoron. Belt-tightening is only about losing weight, and since we're a nation increasingly obese, becoming the fat of the land, it's a rare belt that needs tightening.
The word "war" has been reduced to something meaning effort, sort of, or a distant goal in an undefined future. We're at "war" against a vague enemy of criminals that the commander in chief only reluctantly identifies as "Islamic fascists." We're told we must win the "war" of ideas by persuading peaceful Muslims to adopt the Judeo-Christian values alien to most of them.
Calling it "the war of ideas" cheapens the meaning of the word, too. In the war of words, few peaceful Muslims speak up against the Islamic fascists, no doubt because many are intimidated if not terrified. They know that the fascists among them won't be moved by "diplomacy," or "carrots" instead of sticks, because the jihadists demand unconditional surrender. They're determined that America and the American way of life be dead and buried. You only have to listen to what they say, which they punctuate with bullets, bombs and beheadings.
A real war requires the single-minded pursuit of victory, the unapologetic gathering of intelligence through the surveillance of the enemy through e-mails, telephone records and bank transactions. This will require even the sacrifice of certain rights to privacy, harder to give up than a Lancome moisturizer, but we're in a struggle where the sacrifice must be more than merely cosmetic.