Time to declare war

Edit: Cpl. Hassoun is now at the US embassy in Beirut.

According to the AP, Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun is probably in Lebanon. It is unclear if he defected. If so, and we had a declared war, he could be executed for deserting. That would be ironic in that just a week ago we were worried about militants executing him. We shouldn't have such an aversion to declaring war. In fact, Bush should start pushing for just such a declaration now. That would help refocus public attention on the issue of terrorism. It would be right for America, and, I think, politically smart for Bush. He just has to say that without the declaration of war, he isn't getting the tools he needs to fight terrorism. The economy is going much better than the war on terror, yet many people are more worried about the economy than terrorism. This is nuts. I think Iraq has run the public out of gas on the issue of terrorism, but the war is far from over. Iranian intelligence agents were caught with explosives in Iraq, and we are going to have to punish them. Syria is quite possibly harboring Iraqi WMDs, and are also encouraging terrorism. Both nations allow militants to cross their borders into Iraq, and both regimes should be destroyed.

Militants try to convince everyone that the war on terror is a war on Islam. Well it most certainly is a war on a brand of Islam. Like WWII, we didn't start the war, and we didn't join it until thousands of innocent people were killed in one attack.