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THIS WAR HAS NO MAGICAL POWERS

OK, so now we've all heard that Nostradamus predicted the destruction of the World Trade Center, that supposedly he said "twins will be separated" or some junk like that. I could look it up, but the thing is that I don't care.

Ditto for the e-mail we all got saying the terrorist attacks had something to do with the number 11 – that it happened on 9/11, that nine plus one plus one equals 11 and a lot of other garbage that, again, I'm not going to look up because, like, so what? Are we going to get rid of the number 11? Go right from 10 to ... whatever comes after 11? I'm not looking that up either.

Then there was Jerry Falwell's famous comment that God "lifted his veil of protection" because of abortion and gays and feminists and any girl who wouldn't go out with Falwell when he was in high school. This theme has been picked up by countless people who say this is all about abortion or prayer in school or the lousy, ungrateful kids these days.

This is all, of course, piffle. I wouldn't even think I'd have to point that out.

You may think what you like about religion, Nostradamus, or that just possibly this is all happening in order to inconvenience me personally. These are all perfectly legitimate areas of concern - though I myself wouldn't dare to guess what God wants of us.

But none of it has anything to do with why we were attacked, why we're in this war, and how we're going to recover. The facts of this war are very solid and practical. Some people decided to attack us because, depending on whom you believe, we've interfered clumsily in Mideastern affairs or our democratic model has undermined certain people's authority. Either story pretty much sounds like us.

The attackers got past our defenses because we just didn't think anybody would ever do a thing like this, and we failed to see that because we don't hate anybody as much as some folks apparently hate us.

The reason we are going to war is not that we are purely good, and therefore must vanquish evil. We're not purely anything. And the Taliban, to give them their due, are said be more principled and less corrupt than the rulers they supplanted.

We're at war because around 6,000 of our citizens were murdered pretty much all at once. And if we don't catch the people who did that, they probably will do it again.

So we found a suspect, who denies that he did it but seems happy to tell us exactly why it was done. He happens to live in Afghanistan, and the rulers of that country refuse to hand him over to us. They complain that we won't give them evidence of the suspect's guilt, and yeah, to tell you the truth, I kind of wish we would. But our government doesn't really trust their government, and it's hard to blame us.

So we are attacking. Both the suspect and his allies are trying to say that we are attacking the nation of Islam. They, too, think it's good versus evil.

But we don't want to attack the nation of Islam. We don't even want to attack the nation of Afghanistan. I mean, what the heck are we going to do with it once we get it? Install some incompetent regime that's going to blow up in our faces - again - in another five years? Try to rule them ourselves when we barely even can pass our own Labor Department budget? Get all the Afghanis to work for Kathie Lee Gifford?

No, we need this war like we need anthrax. Nonetheless, we will fight it.

And although faith in the unseen helps people get through difficult times and even to face battle, we will win this war through the usual unholy methods. We'll make unpleasant, amoral deals with other nations, we'll hammer strategic targets in our enemy's territory, our soldiers will brutalize the opposing soldiers more than the opposing soldiers brutalize ours, and we'll all try to stick together. That is how wars are won. Every one of them.

And it would be the same even if the plane crashes happened on 9/12 - though, when you think about it, nine plus one plus two equals 12, and there are 12 signs of the zodiac, and 12 years ago I read my horoscope and it said "A war will break out that will inconvenience you personally." So. There you are.