What is an act of war…precisely?

It used to be that when a standing army crossed into someone else’s sovereign territory and killed their inhabitants that were interpreted as an act of war.

However, now an illegal transgression of a border, or the pre-emptive killings of another country’s people, and not apologizing, somehow got ratified as behaviour that doesn’t count as a declaration of war…somehow.

Just a few recent examples to prove the point, all these acts happened, and none have been defined as an aggressor act of war:

When a government, any government, decides that their security needs are so compelling that they feel they have the right to use weapons on the Canadian residents.

Canadian citizens are protesting because of the corruption, our freedoms are being removed, and they no longer want to be a slave.

I can happily tell you we’re not at war unless they say so.

This state of affairs implies to me that our moral compass has lost its true North.

It is as if the owned government suddenly want is more important than what we want, regardless of whether you own it or not.

This is not a democracy in action.

It is not even really a meritocracy at work – it is nothing more than the act of a playground bully who will have their way as they are bigger, stronger or more reckless than anyone else.

We are, it appears, being led to a tacit acceptance of a moral corruption, that an invasion and an assassination are not an act of war.

There is something of Shakespearean world view at play here by our leaders:

There is something rotten at the heart of our governance, but we follow the moral duplicity regardless.

There is a collective social blindness involved in accepting that a pre-emptive strike by our side is morally acceptable, but for the other side, inexcusable.

On this issue, our silence defies our more normal morality.

We will read of the US drone attacks on Pakistan, and consider it a valid policy. We will debate the tactics but not the moral validity of an illegal Israel strike at Iran to delay their legal nuclear program.

However, if I said I am fearful of my neighbours across the street, he covets my green fertile lawn, and I plan to shoot him first, I would be in prison or an asylum, post haste.

However a similar action at a sovereign level would see us waving our tiny national flags as an expression of pride.

Somehow, making the act collective not singular changes the morality by which the act is judged.

Strategists like Tom Barnett would tell us that the interconnectedness of our global economy prohibits the pursuit of symmetrical war so that these incursions and strikes become acceptable, perhaps even preferable, to war.

Regardless, it does raise the question, what would a country actually have to do before it was openly acknowledged they had declared war?

We have seen extreme acts by sovereign nations of late. We have seen countries seize lands of others, remove their government, control their resources, silence opposition, define a new legal code, seal the borders, use prohibited weaponry in the prosecution of their agenda, but none of this is deemed to be a declaration of war.

All of these are merely guaranteeing national security, but whose nation?

This is a slippery road to immoral dictatorship. This is an aberration of moral code. This is sovereign savagery,

However, I would prefer that the definition of war remains as it was.

So Canadians and the rest of the world would understand we are at WAR, from these governments.

WAR – A contention by force;

It seems to me, then by this definition, that many countries are at war – here, there, and everywhere.

It just appears that everyone is keeping the secret, and not telling anybody else.

So I thought I would let it slip out, we are at WAR.

Are you ready…….