THE LONG WAR?

General Anthony Zinni is now talking and writing about the "war on terrorism" as "the long war." Other people are talking about it as World War III. We need to do some re-numbering here. Several historians consider World Wars I and II to be mere installments of a single war (with a 20-year intermission, from 1919 to 1939.) And, on the other hand, we've already had World War III--otherwise known as the Cold War. It lasted fifty years (from 1945 to 1995.) Does Zinni think the current war will last longer than that?

What disturbs me about both World War III and the current World War IV is that, unlike I and II, they were arbitrarily declared by American leaders. The Cold War was kept going for fifty years largely, one suspects, because it gave our leaders an excuse to do pretty much anything they wanted. Anybody who pays serious attention to history knows that the best way for any ruler to seize dictatorial powers is to start a war. The word "dictator" comes from a Roman title for a general given absolute power in order to pursue a defensive war. So are we looking at another Fifty Years' War, used as a pretext for even more blatant seizure of power?