Throughout the history of man, there have been wars. Wars are the great arbitrator of the many and clashing ideals, principles, goals and greed of the human species. Seldom has war been averted by diplomacy when a nation is sufficiently convinced of their purposes. I suppose it has occurred when there was a "lot more talk and little less action" but, since I find it impossible to recall such a time, these instances must be exceptions rather than the rule. To declare, vaingloriously, that World War I (or any war, for that matter) was "the war to end all wars" is self-deception at its finest. War is the essence of man dealing with man and it will, until the end of time, be the judge of nations.

Wars are fought for many reasons but, probably, not as many true, elementary goals as one might imagine. In the earliest of times, they were fought, principally, for conquest. A country wants what another country has and decides it can take it. Subjugation of others being, in most cultures, the supreme sense of power and glory. The wars of antiquity were, for the most part, all fought with simple conquest and assimilation in mind.

With the rise of mass religions in the world - shall we say, between Emperor Constantine and the Edict of Milan (313 A.D.) and 1200 A.D. - wars remained wars of conquest and subjugation. The nuance was that religion - other than that believed in locally - was not only a threat that needed to be vanquished but, couched with self-righteous benevolence, the "heathens" of the "other" faith would find the true path to salvation if they could only be brought (forcibly, if necessary) to the true light. And the "true" light was, of course, the religion practiced by your people. I have always found it paradoxical that wars were raged over hundreds and hundreds of years because of religious beliefs but, then, I am of but a simple mind and cannot conceive, always, what may be obvious to others. Thus, on this point, I must adjure for clarification.

Whatever the facts of the matter, the "holy wars" were fought, first between the major religions - Christianity, Islam, Hinduism - The Crusades and The Reconquista being the primary examples. The give-and-take between the major theocracies continues, even today. Once the dust settled from these divinely-inspired heavyweights dividing up Europe, Northern Africa and Asia, the fighting took on yet another twist. Sects within the major players warred upon each other. Beginning in the 16^th and 17^th Centuries, the Christian faith, previously dominated by the papacy, begin to fracture. The First and Second Reformation splintered Christianity along Church of England, Calvinist or Lutheran lines and the Holy Roman Empire receded in part of Europe as "Protestants" rebelled against the imminency of the Pope. Catholic Spain and France squared off against Lutheran Germany in the Thirty-Years War and other lesser wars throughout all of Europe.

It is sufficient to say that the first 750 years or so of the 2^nd Millennium was a time of flexing of religious "muscle" and began to sort itself out around the time that the America was discovered and began serving as refuge for the unwanted religious sects not powerful enough to scratch out a safe haven on the continent. The vast majority of those who emigrated to America in the first 200 years of the new frontier were for the purpose of finding a home for their religious beliefs and respite from European religious persecution.

Religious differences died down, for the most part, with the turn of the 19^th century and the causes of war shifted, yet again. Wars of pure conquest (to acquire land and resources) were scaled down to a new national passion: imperialism. The great European powers - Great Britain, Spain, Belgium and France - had enough of fighting each other and, instead, began forcibly carving up the world’s smaller nations. The extension of empire to Africa, South America and the Far East was all the rage as the Europeans sought to bring Christian salvation to the savages and, along the way, subjugate and plunder their lands. Even the newest superpower, the United States, threw in and took on the salvation of Cuba and the Philippines at the close of the 19^th Century.

The dawn of the 20^th Century brought yet another shift in the art of war. It was, in fact, "back to the future" for the European Continent. The oldest spark of war - the desire to conquer and subjugate - raised its ugly head once more. In World War I and World War II, Germany set forth to dominate the continent and, each time, appeared very near achieving their goal. Save for the intervention of the Yanks, German plans of conquest might have succeeded.

After 1950, the justification for war again mutated from simple greed or religion to political ideology. The "Cold War" pitted the forces of light (democracy) against those of darkness (communism). And, instead of annihilating each other with nuclear weapons, the combatants chose, instead, to fight wildfires of indirect engagement. Like schoolyard bullies, sniping and posturing at each other rather than actually engaging in a deciding test of strength, these arm-wrestling contests, though geographically small, were intensely bloody and costly. Korea and, later, Vietnam were fought with horrendous consequences for both sides and nothing, actually, was decided. That is, other than the realization that anything less than an all-out exchange would not remove the impasse of political/economic dogma. So, the powers settled for staring across the Iron Curtain and snarling at each other.

In the end, the Soviet Union blinked, collapsed under its own weight and withered away. Democracy was universally declared the winner (cue "Highlander": "There can only be one") and, one would think, wars would vanish from the purifying light of the age of detente. But, sadly yet predictably, it was not to be. In another shift in the ineradicable nature of war and man, the world reverted back to the age of holy war. And, once again, the combatants were Christianity and Islam and the movie is titled: "Crusade - The Sequel." And here we sit - poised with our knives at the throats of the infidels (and I refer to both sides in that) - at the current age.

After this brief, decidedly incomplete and minimally enlightening trip down the bloodstained memory lane of the past two millennia, several things should, I hope, become indisputable. Allow me, if you will, to enumerate:

1. War is embroidered into the fabric of mankind and human interaction and, though it does flow in cycles, will always be part of the world’s landscape.

2. War has never been (and is not now) an efficient or logical approach to the ends sought by the combatants.

3. At the risk of alienating some readers, it is my opinion that to refer to any conflict as a "good war" is to give voice to an sordid oxymoron that demeans and insults those who lost their lives fighting in it.

4. Causes (excuses ?) for waging war fall under a relatively small and predictable list (simple conquest, religious fervor, imperialism, political ideology) that are repeated as various intervals over time.

5. Wars serve the government that prosecutes them in predictable ways that are always beneficial, ultimately, to the power of that government.

It is the last point that I would like to briefly address. If one were a conspiracy theorist (which I am not), and examined the end result of war, one would begin to wonder if governments fight wars for no other reason than to inflate the extent of their powers. To graph government size over time, you would quickly note that, during and after war time, there is always a decided spike in the size of government and the extent of its power. While this is, perhaps, to be expected, the quizzical thing of some note, however, is that there is never a return to baseline after the war spike. In other words, an axiom that could be applied is that, once power is ceded to government in time of crisis, we never get it back. This, I believe, is an indisputable fact.

From the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 through the unconstitutional transgressions of Abraham Lincoln (he imprisoned without trial some 18,000 American citizens that dissented against the war and suspended the writ of habeas corpus throughout the Union) through Woodrow Wilson’s revival of the Sedition Acts during World War I (fostering the Palmer Raids designed to suppress the freedom of the press), governments in time of conflict have the annoying (not to say unconstitutional) habit of trampling upon the very liberties we, presumably, are fighting to defend. Ever the Protestant crusader, Wilson opined: "Hyphenated Americans (who) have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty and anarchy must be crushed out." "Crushed out", indeed.

The assaults on liberty did not end with World War II. Franklin Roosevelt, merrily puffing on his sweet Caporal cigarette, interned 120,000 first and second generation Japanese immigrants (over half legal U.S. citizens) for the duration of the war under Executive Order 9066. And no one raised a whisper of protest. After all, it was necessary for national security, right?

And, now, we have another war, the "War of Terrorism." I am not here to debate the merits of the acts of government to defend Americans from this "clear and present dangers"; that will be the job of historians long into the future. But I feel more than a bit uneasy with the indistinct and shifting lines that suggest, at least to me, a perpetual and permanent assault on American liberties. Allow me to say, also, that I am not a liberal in any sense of that word but I do reserve the right to think for myself and see parallels in history, especially when they unceremoniously slap me upside my head. And one such association is the issuance of the war whoop and infringements on the Constitution.

The "War on Terrorism" has spawned not an Alien and Sedition Act (1798) or, merely, a Sedition Act (1915). It has, however, unleashed "The Patriot Act" which, in part:

"The act expands the authority of US law enforcement agencies for the stated purpose of fighting terrorism in the United States and abroad. Among its provisions, the Act increases the ability of law enforcement agencies to search telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial and other records; eases restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering within the United States; expands the Secretary of the Treasury’s authority to regulate financial transactions, particularly those involving foreign individuals and entities; and enhances the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and deporting immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts. The act also expands the definition of terrorism to include domestic terrorism, thus enlarging the number of activities to which the USA Patriot Acts expanded law enforcement powers can be applied." [Emphasis added]

The wheels keep spinning and the rule is, once again, buttressed: when our eyes are fixed on the wolves at our door, the fox in the henhouse can do us immeasurable harm. Clearly, in times of conflict, the American citizenry need to jealously guard their freedoms from unwarranted government infringement. Certainly, we should all desire security from external threat but it is the internal threats that may, in fact, impede us most dramatically for the long term. Liberty and security is a fine line that must be tread carefully.

War, whatever the perceived or actual enemy, is (and always has been) the "growth hormone of government."

Begging your pardon, once again, but that is just my opinion.