[TonyR]

When the al-Qaida attacks on 9/11 were followed by a debate about whether the campaign to defeat Osama bin Laden and his network should be thought of as police work or war, I was surprised. The idea of a "war on terror" seemed obviously inappropriate, even as a metaphor. In its structure and modus operandi, al-Qaida and other terrorist networks were and are more like international criminal organizations -- drug smuggling or prostitution cartels, for example -- than like states. The U.S. military might supplement law enforcement efforts, if countries protected bin Laden, as the Taliban regime did in Afghanistan before it was deposed and as it now appears elements of the Pakistani government must have done for many years. But apart from raids like the one in which bin Laden was killed, the chief responsibility for identifying jihadist networks and disrupting planned acts of terrorism would lie with intelligence agencies and law enforcement officials.

It soon became clear that I did not understand my own country. In a remarkably short period of time, the right managed to persuade the American people to think of jihadist terrorism as war, not crime. Al-Qaida's transnational network of militants, and the imitators it inspired, was treated as though they were the equivalents of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Instead of being treated as the equivalent of the terrorist Carlos the Jackal, bin Laden was promoted to the status of Hitler or Stalin.

The campaign to defend America and its allies against al-Qaida was a war. A Long War. A Global War on Terror.

Read the rest here: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/w..._iv/index.html