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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated
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To: carranza2 who wrote (97343)1/28/2005 12:52:14 PM
From: Ilaine  Read Replies (1) of 793743
 
How would you define existential?

I could not give an a priori definition that would satisfy me, and probably not one that would satisfy you.

In the Civil War, the US was attacked by the Confederacy on our own soil. That's existential.

In WWII, we were attacked by the Japanese on our own soil, and the Axis declared war against us shortly afterwards. That's existential.

The so-called "War on Terrorism" is, in theory, existential, but it's not actually a war. We call it war because we haven't figured out another word that is better suited for what we are doing. The war in Iraq confused this issue.

We were told that going to war in Iraq was part of the "War on Terrorism." Well, turns out that wasn't true, strictly speaking.

BTW, I don't expect us to come up with a better word than war. We called the "Cold War" a war, too, even though it really wasn't.
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