Is the "War on Terror" actually a war?

[Brian Fearn]

Is there such a thing as a war that is neither an international conflict nor a civil war?

Bush administration supporters argue that such a war can exist, that we are in such a war, and that "combatants" captured in such a war are not protected by the Geneva Conventions of 1949, because the types of conflicts specified by those conventions are not the same kind of conflict as the one we are in now.

In the past terrorism was handled as a type of international criminal activity, and terrorists treated according to criminal law, not as enemy combatants in a "war." Is there any justification for the change in modus operandi initiated by the Bush administration?

Basically, the Bush administration wants to have all the powers of war with none of the traditional limitations -- no limits on what constitutes the "theater of war" or legitimate targets or conditions of imprisonment that apply to POWs. They say we are "at war" with terror, but somehow the rules regarding "prisoners of war" fail to apply to what they call "enemy combatants."

Scary stuff.