To keep a population in line, wage perpetual war against a vague enemy

Has anyone else following the aftermath of Sept. 11 been struck by the similarity to George Orwell's "1984" -- in which a never-ending, faraway war against ever-changing enemies serves as a rationale for political and social repression?

In the past five months numerous Americans, and not a few Europeans, have not dared speak their minds, and many more have not dared to think things through to a point at which the urge to speak one's mind becomes unbearable.

There was no genuine war after Sept. 11 -- there could not have been. And no country, not even one as powerful as the United States after it lost the Soviet Union as its only rival, can hijack such an important concept as war without in the long run bringing disaster upon itself. Orwell, that great beacon of political common sense in the 20th century, educated at least two generations of reasonable observers of political reality in the danger of misusing words in this way.

A huge crime was committed, the biggest mass murder ever seen directly by hundreds of millions all over the globe. A vast police action, backed by emergency powers, to uncover and destroy any network of the guilty -- an action primarily to prevent a recurrence -- would be a rational, responsible strategy.