Redefining ‘war’ to fight terror

Re “Court Appears Wary of Terror War Tribunals,” March 29

The Supreme Court heard arguments regarding the legality of President Bush’s terror war tribunal. Justice Stephen G. Breyer and others addressed a fundamental flaw in the logic of the Bush administration and its war on terror.

The events of Sept. 11 were clearly an attack against the United States; however, the endeavor to effectively respond to this attack is not a “war” in the traditional sense.

In Bush’s war on terror there are no clearly defined adversaries. There will never be allied armies marching into an enemy capital and definitively obtaining victory. This is a struggle against an idea, a belief system, that may go on for decades.

In the name of war, the administration is slowly stripping away liberties that, once lost, would be difficult to retrieve. The critiques of Breyer and his colleagues in regard to the tribunal point out the urgent need for a fundamental reassessment of what is called “war” and what measures may be justified by “war” versus the struggle we are in engaged in now, lest these temporary measures to combat terror become permanent fixtures restricting our lost liberties.

STEVEN BELIS

San Pedro