[adam77]

[The reason the "War on Terror" is still treated as a war...]

...is for its legal status (empowering the US executive to carry out certain actions it otherwise couldn't).

A number of laws were changed/reinterpreted following 9/11 with respect to what constitutes war and how it may be implemented.

[LordKano]

None of the legal mechanisms of war apply to what the US is doing in the middle-east.

Congress has authorized certain actions but there has been no declaration of war.

[adam77]

I think technically the US is 'at war' with certain terrorist groups, allowing certain tools of war to be employed (esp. in the middle east).

Something along the lines of: "In times of war...

* the battlefield is wherever the enemy is (just about anywhere you can draw a link to terrorist activity);

* the battlefield may be 'prepared' (drone strikes, assassinations, covert ops, etc).

[LordKano]

We have allowed the word "War" to be bastardized in everyday usage with things like "The War on Drugs" or "The War on Poverty" and now the "War on Terror" but "War" is something very specific.

The United States of America is not at "War" unless there is a Declaration of War from the Congress. The Congress of the United States of America has not declared war in over 70 years.

It's not likely to happen unless this country is facing a very real, existential threat. Declaring war is like flipping a switch on our Constitutional and economic systems.

[dragonwriter]

> The United States of America is not at "War" unless there is a Declaration of War from the Congress.

The Constitution gives the Congress the power to declare war, but the extension of that to "war doesn't exist unless Congress declares it" is reading something into the Constitution which is not expressly there, and which there is a fairly good historical argument (which every Supreme Court case to take up the issue, starting fairly early on in the Republic, also sided with) is not at all intended.

> The Congress of the United States of America has not declared war in over 70 years.

This is not true; just as Congress doesn't have to use magic words when it invokes, say, its interstate commerce power, or its taxation power, neither does it when it choses to exercise its power to declare war; acts of Congress like the 2001 "9/11 AUMF" and the 2003 "Iraq AUMF" are both examples of exercises of the power to declare war (in both cases, declarations made conditional on executive acts.)

> Declaring war is like flipping a switch on our Constitutional and economic systems.

Declaring war is not like flipping a switch on the Constitution. Nor the economic system, really, though separate radical acts in the economic arena may be premised on the existence of a state of war.

[adam77]

not just everyday but part of US legal framework...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milita...

[hueving]

What do you mean by 'technically'? If you mean by the definition that the Constitution follows, the US is not at war. If it was, Congress would be required to declare it.

[adam77]

No not in the constitutional sense [Article I, Section 8, Clause 11] but this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milita...

[Theodores]

Not really. NATO Article 5 was invoked on 12 September 2001. In that way every country in the NATO alliance was de-facto at war as an attack on one is an attack on all. This go-ahead was given on the basis that evidence proving the guilt of Osama bin Laden would be provided later, so that was a 'provisional go-ahead'.

The effect of this NATO 'trick' was that no presidents or prime ministers had to show evidence or get their parliaments to vote for the war. In effect Tony Blair's mate at NATO made the war possible with one meeting and one press conference, claiming that he had seen the evidence proving Osama bin Laden's guilt. Whatever that evidence was is something that the world didn't follow up on with NATO.

[adam77]

I think there's more to it than that, particularly legal interpretation of 'where is the battlefield' and 'preparing the battlefield'.

[innguest]

What is the point of having laws curbing the government if the government can change those laws when it pleases?