I question whether there is anything that can honestly be described as "a war on terrorism" as such. The very term is a metaphor, similar to terms such as "war on poverty".

"Terrorism" is a type of violence which is carried out for many reasons, by many people, including governments, some of them "friendly governments", and at various times by organisations which have received training and support from the USA.

Terrorism is violence directed at civilians to achieve political objectives. It is a vile thing, whoever does it. It is similar to torture - in fact in many ways it is a kind of torture.

If Bush and they others were to declare war on all forms of torture, including especially the kind of torture which is implied in terror attacks against civilians, it would be clear that this was a more complicated commitment than an ordinary war, with an identified external enemy. Sadly torture has its proponents much much closer to home - and so has terror as an weapon of policy.

However the rhetoric of "war on terrorism" has been employed in such a way as to suggest that it is all out there, and that there is an "axis of evil" which is the source of it all. James Bond stuff. A dangerous distortion of reality, which plays directly into the hands of the kind of people who organised September 11.