V-T Day?

Lots of folks are more than a little fond of drawing comparisons between World War II and whatever you care to call the conflict that began on September 11, 2001. Last week a Salon letter-writer dropped a factoid that set me back on that analogy: Using the World War II schedule, if 9/11 was Pearl Harbor, then the war should have ended last Friday. *

Whether you're hawk, dove, neo-, paleo- or just looking to compare how little you've achieved in the last three+ years with how much your forefathers managed to pull off in the same amount of time, it's something to think about. And I think When does the national emergency end? is now officially a fair question to ask.

* Please, no comments about how WWII didn't start with Pearl Harbor. The actual beginning of the War On Terrorism I've seen defined as everything from the USS Cole to the battle of Mogadishu to the first WTC bombing to the Beirut barracks bombing to the Rushdie affair to the Iran hostage crisis to Sal Mineo's induction into the Irgun in Exodus.