Howard Zinn on the Futility of War

War got a big workout this week. President Bush is stumping hard for it. Newt Gingrich is howling for it — not just war, but World War 3 — not to "accommodate, understand or negotiate," he wrote this week, but "to defeat America's enemies around the world."

84-year-old "people's historian" Howard Zinn has a radically different view. The author of the "People's History of the United States" looks back on all the wars since World War II, and says war isn't working anymore. It didn't work for the United States in Vietnam, for the Soviets in Afghanistan, for Israel in Lebanon, and isn't for the US in Iraq, and it won't work against terrorism, says Zinn.

This hour, On Point: a conversation with people's historian Howard Zinn on why war is not the answer.

Guests:

Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University and author of "A People's History of the United States."

David Frum, former special assistant and speech writer to President George W. Bush, current contributing editor to the National Review, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.