on the use of the word "war"

I am getting tired of the use of the word "war" as it has been used by the current and previous Republican administrations. We have a "war on drugs" that has been used to hassle other countries and to curtail the freedoms of people who prefer to misuse something besides alcohol. We also have a "war on terror" which is no more a war than the war we didn't conduct against the Mafia and the Cosa Nostra. The "war on drugs" never was a war. It was an action against criminals and it has backfired on us in that we still seem to have as many drugs as ever (looking at the most recent busts) and those who deal in them make higher profits than the tobacco and alcohol industries (except when alcohol was prohibited).

And then we have the "war on terror." It, too, is not a war. We had a war in Afghanistan and may be having another since we didn't finish the job the first time and we had a war in Iraq that ended after our invasion squashed the army of Saddam and toppled his government. That was war. What we have now is the aftermath of our failure to perceive how we would be greeted by the Iraqis and the insurgency that would follow. What we now have is a training ground for terrorists and an effort to create a country as we would like it, including privatizing its oil so Exxon Mobile and its cohots will get 80% of the profits from Iraq's oil rather than the government and the people of Iraq. That's part of our "conditions" that the Iraqis haven't fallen for and most people in this country don't realize. Iraq had no ties to those who created 9-11 and no WMDs. It apparently had not violated the U.N. resolutions, either, although it hadn't admitted that. What I really can't understand is the mindset of those in the beltway who didn't know that there were no WMDs in Iraq in the first place. It was obvious from this distance. Anyway, the point is that the only thing that makes it a "war" in Iraq is that we are using soldiers instead of policemen to track down criminals.