"Terrorist extremist" bin Laden, 1997 -?
        "Butcher of Belgrade" Milosevic, 1992-2000
        "Somali warlord" Aideed, 1991-1994
        "Brutal dictator" Hussein, 1990-1992, 2002-?
        "Panamanian strongman" Noriega, 1989-1990
        "Libyan madman" Khadaffi, 1984-1988

At the time we waged war on them, each one of the above-referenced political leaders tended to represent "absolute evil". But to this day, the federal government's reasons, or rationales, for war remain unclear.

Some are patently absurd, e.g., that Noriega was meaningfully responsible for illegal drugs in the United States, or that occupation of Somalia was necessary to prevent its people's starvation.

The rationales for other wars are plausible but subject to revision. The first war on Iraq was to liberate Kuwait; the second war seeks "regime change." The war on Afghanistan was commenced to apprehend bin Laden, but declared a victory because we "liberated" Afghan women.

Finally, the rationales for some wars are contradictory - we killed Serbs to protect Islamic extremists, but killed Afghans because they protected Islamic extremists.

Orwell wrote of "The Party" - only one political party governed Oceania, and so the definite article is used. Orwell's dystopia is in this respect more honest than the United States, which trumpets the virtues of a "two party system" that does not exist. Behind this vaunted "two party system" hides a single party - the party of war and tyranny.

A real two party system last existed under Ronald Reagan, who was the last President to be called a warmonger. Yet, more than recent Presidents, Reagan prized peace (and freedom). Under Reagan's eight year Presidency, the federal government deployed troops 16 times - 8 per presidential term.

"The Party" formed during the administration of Bush I. During his Presidency, we deployed troops 14 times - 14 per term. Under Clinton, we had 40 troop deployments - 20 per term. [4] Bush II could set a new record. But whether the Commander in Chief is a "Democrat" or "Republican", the Party' s war policy does not change - troop deployments steadily increase 6 per term per President. Yet no opposition party cries "Warmonger!" No voices of dissent are even audible.

Ironically, notwithstanding 70 troop deployments since 1980, the mere use of the term "war" is assiduously avoided. In 1962, the former "Department of War" changed its name to the "Department of Defense." Congress no longer "declares War", as is contemplated by the United States Constitution (Article 1, Section 8), but passes resolutions authorizing "military force." The United Nations concerns itself not with "war" but with "conflict". The mass slaughter of soldiers, and increasingly, civilians, (but not yet government officials) is thus reduced from "war" to the level of Freudian psychodrama.

The term "war" is now used only in those instances where our rulers want their subjects to expect less. Less of what depends on the circumstances. In Oceania, war caused the "Ministry of Plenty" to reduce the chocolate ration from thirty to twenty grams. [5] Americans haven't faced rationing since WWII, but we are now urged to expect less of other things.

For America, the term "war" now means "expect less freedom." The war on drugs, fought by the Department of Justice, means "more Justice equals less freedom." The war on terrorism, fought by the Department of Defense, means "more safety equals less freedom."

The "war on" formula conveniently omits the identity of the actor. When the federal government has a "Department of War" or a Congress that "declares War", the federal government is readily seen as an agent of war. In the "war on" formulation, the identity of the actor is subsumed into the act itself; the cause of the war is deemed unimportant. It is called "war" only because that term creates a desired "effect" on the listener - the citizen who must expect less.

The waging of continuous war requires the assistance of a compliant collectivity of media, whose functions include emphasizing the wickedness of the enemy of the moment, glorifying the government's might in destroying the enemy, delineating the war's consequences for listeners (the citizens who must expect less), and providing the necessary distractions (spectator sports, pornography, etc.).

In Oceania, the government's Ministry of Truth had as its:

"primary job [...] to supply the citizens of Oceania with newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen programs, plays, novels [...] there was a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian literature [...] here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology [...] There was even a whole sub-section-Pornosec- it was called in Newspeak-engaged in producing the lowest kind of pornography." [6]

The United States fought no wars overseas until the administration of Woodrow Wilson. Before, our people had fought wars for freedom - whether freedom from the British or freedom from slavery. But it was Wilson who first stated that the purpose of war was peace: "to make the world safe for democracy [...] its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty." [9] Wilson waged America's first world war to secure the world's peace and called it "the war to end all wars." But his war only proved that wars give rise to other wars.

After the armistice, Wilson's "Fourteen Points" proposed a "League of Nations." Today, its successor, the United Nations, is the world's foremost enemy of freedom.

War for freedom can make sense. War for peace cannot. The means of war has been known to secure the result of freedom, but it never secures the result of peace - it only defeats that end. Therefore, it is only fair to conclude that the spurious doctrine of "War is Peace" cloaks the darker purposes of war: conquest, subjugation and oppression. These are the purposes of empire.

And like Janus, the leviathan of empire has two faces: outward, one of war and inward, one of tyranny. They have a common enemy, and that is freedom.

Indeed it may be truly said, and was by the prescient and imaginative Orwell, that the doctrine "War is Peace" is nothing but the "War on Freedom" in disguise.

Let there be no more "War is Peace." If wars must come, let us fight them for Faith and Freedom.