Here's my premise (and I'll admit from the outset that I could be wrong):

I think that the present conflict should be called World War III. And even if it isn't called WWIII by the press, and by historians, but I just decided that's how I should think of it.

I don't know what the criteria ought to be when deciding if a conflict is a "World War" or not. But many of the world's major countries are involved, and the fighting/killing is taking place on almost every continent.

The United States says that this is a war that will be fought on many fronts and in many theaters all over the world. There are many countries allied with us.

And one of our enemies says it's a world wide war.

Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader issued a worldwide call Thursday for Muslims to rise up in a holy war against Israel and join the fighting in Lebanon and Gaza until Islam reigns from "Spain to Iraq." He said that al-Qaida now views "all the world as a battlefield open in front of us."

The "War on Terror" and the terrorists war on the world has affected nearly every country in the world. On some level everyone is involved. It's Axis V. Allies all over again. And even those groups that aren't explictly tied (like Hezbollah and Al Queda) share the same goals: destruction of Israel, America and the Western world. This is much like the understanding shared between Japan and Germany in WWII.

Why not call it World War III?
One of the things that makes it difficult is that the enemy hasn't typically been a single country or alliance of countries like in previous world wars. It's also hard to pinpoint a beginning point, and it may be even tougher to pinpoint an end. There will be no treaty or surrender. There will be no VT(Victory against Terrorists) day. This is a different kind of war, with a different kind of enemy, but it is still a war.

Also, I think the media and the public (myself included) has been reluctant to call it World War III because we always figured that the the third world war would be nuclear. In fact the term "World War III" has often been used in the movies as a euphemism for nuclear war. So because this current conflict, though it has been called a war by both sides, and though both sides claim that it is worldwide, isn't nuclear, it has managed to avoid the label thus far. (Of course, the only reason this war isn't nuclear is because the other side doesn't have nukes yet.)

The first step to a cure is admitting there is a disease.
We are in a World War folks. And it's the third one. I think it's time we wake up to reality. Denial ain't just a river in a terrorist spawning country.