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A declaration of war, even in the non-legalistic form used by President Bush, clarifies matters. Tony Blair has now followed President Bush, declaring that Britain is at war... "Whatever the technical or legal issues about a declaration of war, the fact is we are at war with terrorism. What happened on Tuesday was an attack not just on the United States, but an attack on the civilised world" Blair said it will be a "systematic war on the whole machinery of terrorism". The declarations are already far more explicit, than the reliance on UN resolutions in the Gulf War and in Kosovo. The UN texts were at that time interpreted for the convenience of the US and its allies - but they still did not declare war. Neither did Saddam Hussayn or Slobodan Milosevic. This time there is no attempt by the USA, to create even the fiction of an international collective-security action. The fog of peace has dispersed, a fog thicker than any 'fog of war'. A British declaration of war is a definitive break with previous policy. Remember that for 30 years successive British Governments consistently refused to describe the events in Northern Ireland as a war. Remember that the IRA always claimed to be fighting a war of national liberation, and deliberately used military terminology to describe itself. The British Government however, maintained, that they were no more than common criminals. For 30 years stiff-upper-lip British spokesmen kept to that line - until yesterday. In general, it was also the line of the US government. At least one US politician, quoted on CNN, doubts the wisdom of this change. But the mood of the public is clearly that of the CNN logo: "America's new war". The logical consequences seem unnoticed. Paradoxically, the new policy legitimises the attack on the WTC and the Pentagon. It was considered an 'act of war', and that was the primary reason to declare war. But if America is at war, then logically it will be subjected to acts of war. Wars consist of acts of war. A declaration of war normalises the situation: it returns the world to the long-term pattern of inter-state hostilities. (European nation states inherited the 'declaration of war' from the Mediterranean city-states). It normalises it even in a legal sense. Suppose there is a formal declaration of war against the organisation of Osama bin Laden. I am not sure that the US really sees him as the 'prime suspect': the complexity of the attack indicates state sponsorship, and Iraq is the prime suspect for that. But if, during a state of war, bin Laden's followers storm the Pentagon in a ground assault, then they can not be tried on criminal charges. They could in all probability claim the status of prisoner-of-war, and invoke the Red Cross as protecting power. Soldiers - and that now includes irregulars - can not be tried purely for military actions. If the state of war is applied retroactively, then crashing a plane into the Pentagon is, in itself, acceptable as a military action. The Pentagon is without any doubt a military target. although the use of civilians to shield or implement a military action is a war crime. Certainly an attack like that on the USS Cole, which involved no non-combatant civilians, would be considered legitimate even by western military standards in wartime. More important than the legalities, is how the war is perceived. Again: wars consist of acts of war. People get killed, that is what war means. If America is at war then the dead are 'casualties', not 'victims'. It is part of the normality of war; casualties every day, usually many casualties. The state of war also creates a moral equivalence between the combatants, which is inconsistent with the continuing use of the word "terrorist". But in fact, the coming war will be largely directed at states anyway. Even a hostile reaction on their part, will reinforce the perception of the war as a 'normal war'. This is exactly the effect that British governments feared: it tends to create an equal-status opponent, The Enemy. In the case of the IRA, that would have meant recognising them as a national liberation movement, and negotiating a settlement. For the second time - because the British Government recognised the first IRA, and negotiated a peace treaty with them, in 1922. The present army of the Republic of Ireland, the soldiers who stand to attention when US Presidents visit Dublin, that is the direct organisational continuation of the first IRA. Now what will President Bush do, if Osama bin Laden offers to negotiate peace? Will one of his successors inspect a guard of honour of ex-hijackers? Those considerations are mainly for the United States itself. But the clarity of war does not stop there. Wars define relationships. The declaration of war defines the relationship of enmity, and that is a not a social construction. This is what I mean about clarifying history: in fact the United States has been at war for about 100 years, more or less continously, somewhere. Millions of people already knew the USA, and the American people, as their enemy. Now it's official. The United States has now approached its allies, including the Netherlands, where I live. Article 5 of the NATO founding treaty has been activated for the first time - committing the member states to the status of 'war allies'. Under Article 5., not just the United States, but the whole Alliance, goes to war, In turn, that activates the loyalty demand implicit in all nation states: in wartime the citizen is subordinate to the interests and survival of the state. From now on, opposition to the NATO in member states is treason, legally there is no doubt about that. Suppression of anti-alliance demonstrations for instance, would be considered standard and acceptable, for any nation state in a wartime alliance. Now I have no loyalty to the NATO, or the United States, or even the Netherlands - which I do not consider a legitimate state. Like all the NATO member states, it is an obstacle to a unified European state. The sooner it disappears, the better. Its territory should be incorporated in a single European state, under new administrative boundaries. Parts of the country should clearly be administered from 'foreign' cities such as Aachen. I mention this detail because it is treasonable. This is the Dutch legal definition of treason: 'attempts to place the kingdom under foreign rule'. It used to carry the death penalty. But mass treason to the nation states, is a necessary precondition for a unified Europe. Now this treason will be suppressed, and loyalty to the nation will be enforced. In the European context, that national loyalty has an inevitable anti-European component. The Netherlands Justice minister has called for the re-imposition of border controls, in the Schengen zone. Many border posts has already been demolished: now the clock will be turned back. The inevitable repression associated with the war, the turning back of the clock, is the direct result of the American declaration of war. That declaration was made on beahlf of, and with the overwhelming support of, the American people. They are at war, I am not on their side, I oppose them, their nation, their nation state, their allies, their European alliance, their model of a Europe of the nation states, their war, and their values. In a war that will not be tolerated. Such attitudes will be subject to repression in some form. Therefore the American people are to me, as enemy to enemy. This categorisation is inevitable in any war, there are no wars without enemies. So please, Americans, don't complain to me that I regard you as an enemy, complain to your President: he declared war in your name. The logic is simple. The declaration of war confirms the enmity. There are two enemies, as in all wars. One of them is the American people, that is certain. Every individual who belongs to the American people - and that certainly includes any US citizen who self-identifies as American - is now in a relationship of enmity. Individual Americans can not logically say that they have no enemies: they have enemies by virtue of being Americans. There is nothing remarkable about this, no-one had any difficulty in accepting it during World War II. I see no sign that individual Americans dissent from 'the American people', from their nation at war. US citizens can renounce their citizenship - but I see no rush to do that. They can renounce their own identity, they can 'leave the American people', simply by ceasing to self-identify as American. How many Americans have done that, in the last few days? The American people wants war: that is not just rhetoric. The present war fever can compete with any historical example. This is no second Vietnam, there is no divided nation, no anti-war demonstrators being shot, there are so far no reported anti-war demonstrations at all. There is no party-political opposition, no opposition in the legislature, nothing that will make any dent in the war preparations, almost 90% support for the war. That's certainly sufficient for the military, remember that nations usually go to war with a heavy heart. The war is real, although military actions will take time to build up. Therefore the enmity must therefore be real. This war existed before bin Laden was born, it is the war inherent in the United States itself - a nation founded on the absolute belief, that its own national values are universal. "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." says the Declaration of Independence. So crusades begin, and the United States is a crusader nation. Other people hold different truths to be self-evident, or to be revealed by God. So wars begin. The war declarations therefore clarify the nature of the United States. I realise there is also isolationism in the United States, but long-term it has extended its geopolitical interests over the whole world. I realise that the values of democracy and freedom are not exclusively American either: they are part of the European tradition. The deep long-term relationship between the United States and Europe is that of civil war. To simplify to an extreme degree: the European right emigrated to the United States and established a base there. From that base they are engaged in an ideological war of global conquest. That is the underlying geopolitical pattern. The American people, in other words, are the European right, and the Mayflower was the proto-NATO. The war clarifies this geopolitics and geo-philosophy. The war also clarifies the nature of democracy: it is not about elections, it is a crusade. The war clarifies the nature of the nation state, and of the nation. The nation is a unit, the people are a unit. The essentialist model is the accurate model of a nation in wartime: one single flag-waving mass. The images of American unity show the fallacy of recent theory about the fragmentation of society, and of claims that the nation had become irrelevant. Not "all minorities now", but one unified nation, one American people under the flag. Francis Fukuyama was right about the triumph of liberal market democracy. That is indeed the end of history, or more correctly it will be when it comes. It is the goal toward which the liberal market democracies are advancing, led by the crusader nation of America. However, they are not there yet, and the only way to get there is by making more 'history' - in this context meaning war. The liberal paradise of eternal peace and prosperity - the end of history - lies on the other side of an ocean of blood. -- Paul Treanor