Posted on 04/04/2007 3:43:42 AM PDT by Screamname
No more GWOT, House committee decrees
By Rick Maze - Staff writer Posted : Tuesday Apr 3, 2007 20:12:47 EDT
The House Armed Services Committee is banishing the global war on terror from the 2008 defense budget.
This is not because the war has been won, lost or even called off, but because the committee’s Democratic leadership doesn’t like the phrase.
A memo for the committee staff, circulated March 27, says the 2008 bill and its accompanying explanatory report that will set defense policy should be specific about military operations and “avoid using colloquialisms.”
The “global war on terror,” a phrase first used by President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., should not be used, according to the memo. Also banned is the phrase the “long war,” which military officials began using last year as a way of acknowledging that military operations against terrorist states and organizations would not be wrapped up in a few years.
Committee staff members are told in the memo to use specific references to specific operations instead of the Bush administration’s catch phrases. The memo, written by Staff Director Erin Conaton, provides examples of acceptable phrases, such as “the war in Iraq,” the “war in Afghanistan, “operations in the Horn of Africa” or “ongoing military operations throughout the world.”
“There was no political intent in doing this,” said a Democratic aide who asked not to be identified. “We were just trying to avoid catch phrases.”
Josh Holly, a spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the committee’s former chairman and now its senior Republican, said Republicans “were not consulted” about the change.
Committee aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said dropping or reducing references to the global war on terror could have many purposes, including an effort to be more precise about military operations, but also has a political element involving a disagreement over whether the war in Iraq is part of the effort to combat terrorism or is actually a distraction from fighting terrorists.
House Democratic leaders who have been pushing for an Iraq withdrawal timetable have talked about the need to get combat troops out of Iraq so they can be deployed against terrorists in other parts of the world, while Republicans have said that Iraq is part of the front line in the war on terror. Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the armed services committee chairman, has been among those who have complained that having the military tied up with Iraq operations has reduced its capacity to respond to more pressing problems, like tracking down al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
“This is a philosophical and political question,” said a Republican aide. “Republicans generally believe that by fighting the war on terror in Iraq, we are preventing terrorists from spreading elsewhere and are keeping them engaged so they are not attacking us at home.”
However, U.S. intelligence officials have been telling Congress that most of the violence in Iraq is the result of sectarian strife and not directly linked to terrorists, although some foreign insurgents with ties to terrorist groups have been helping to fuel the fighting.
“You have to wonder if this means that we have to rename the GWOT,” said a Republican aide, referring to the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medals established in 2003 for service members involved, directly and indirectly, in military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world.
“If you are a reader of the Harry Potter books, you might describe this as the war that must not be named,” said another Republican aide. That is a reference to the fact that the villain in the Harry Potter series, Lord Voldemort, is often referred to as “he who must not be named” because of fears of his dark wizardry.
....and help lose the GWOT.
Jimmuh Cahtah didn’t like the terminology “Illegal Aliens”, and ordered his Administration to use only “Undocumented Immigrants” to reference “Illegal Aliens”.
Nothing Political.
Another slap at Bush.
I see, and is that why you asked not to be identified?
My opinion of politicians in general and Democrats in particular is so low as to suspect Orwellian manipulation and concealed motivation and to doubt truthfulness almost as a knee-jerk instinct--an instinct that experience makes me reluctant to abandon.
Certainly in the case of European political leaders, and other outspoken Europeans, there is a strong current of denial and dangerous aversion to truth that makes comparison to Orwellian nightmare impossible to avoid.
The obviousness that the American Left, by which the Democrat Party is controlled, represents the same, strong current of decadence that appears to have damned Europe to a nightmarish future makes its comparison to an Orwellian nightmare also unavoidable.
Would that it were not true.
It`s freggin` disgusting...Any country or group that wanted to attack or invade the US can always count on the Treasoncrats to help them along every step of the way. Look at freggin` Pelosi, just what the F_ is she doing in Syria anyway? What`s her next stop, an Al-Qaeda training camp to see if they have enough rounds?
The promises that she is making our enemies, is that hold on just a few more months until the dems take control, and we will go home and everything will be back to normal.
If you are a dim, you are my enemy, the enemy of freedom and an ENEMY of AMERICA! Screw ALL dims... they waste oxygen!
LLS
Sickening Sons of Bitc$es.
Call the enemy by name: Islam.
Then call Americans whose actions lend comfort and support to the enemy, what they are: TRAITORS!
I thought of a little kid putting his fingers in his ears and going “la, la, la, la, I can’t hear you!”
Are there any adults in the House?
The House waved the Magic Lexicon Wand to make the Global War On Terror go away.
And how do you declare "victory"
You can't. We can, and should, declare war (haven't bothered yet) against nation states who actively seek to harm us (and YES, I believe in pre-emptive strikes). I have no problem at all in hunting down and killing any known terrorists or terrorist enablers, either.
This, however, is fated to be no different than the "war on poverty" or the "war on drugs." No clear goals, no way to get accountability, and sn eternal metastasizing of the "war effort."
As long as there is one poor child, as long as there is one kid smoking a joint somewhere, as long as there is a Mustafa in a a cave slobbering over the Koran with an RPG, the war must go on. Using that type of terminology is silly, and actually cheapens our efforts to resist terrorism.
"WAR" is a term for total destruction of an enemy, not for fighting an ideology.
Israel has been resisting islamofascism FAR longer than we have, and they don't resort to silly emotionally manipulative phraseology. They just kick ass when Egypt, Syria, or whoever comes after them....., and they hunt down and kill terrorists. We could learn a thing or two from them.
Dems = buncha f*ck*ng pansies.
...“There was no political intent in doing this,”...
“...but also has a political element involving a disagreement over whether the war in Iraq is part of the effort to combat terrorism or is actually a distraction from fighting terrorists.”
No “POLITICAL INTENT”?
Many didn’t think twice about that announcement in the ‘70’s when the Dems concocted the language in support of Political Correctness. We need call them on this one.
I guess the DoD will need to rename this site along with the GWOT Medal
Right move, wrong reason; the GWOT no longer has anything very ‘global’ about it because the Bush administration has, through pure incompetence, let it be turned into ‘the war in Iraq’.
Still, I’m sure we’ll get a reminder of its real nature one of these days.
This is the Dems trying to be controllers of the effort they had nothing to do with except expressing their regret for having supported it.
GWOT is indeed too vague a term. Like the “War on Drugs”, the “War on Cancer”, and the “War on Crime” it evokes a nebulous menace that is used tojustify distortion and side-tracking of legal processes, and accumulation of “extraordinary powers” in the hands of public officials and “extraordinary spending” pretexts by vote-hungry politicians looking for ways to extract more funds to buy votes for their next election.
Terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy. Calling enemies “terrorists” is mere posturing. The global war on Wahabism would be more precise, but problematic given the Saudi sponsorship of the institutions that have spread this extreme version of Islam across the globe, western nations’ dependence on Saudi oil, US dependence on Saudi support for the dollar, and the other adversaries in the Islamic world, apocalyptic Shia, who are just as threatening to the US, but would benefit by a US struggle with their traditional Sunni enemies that weakened the latter.
It’s not an easy question, and certainly not one that will be sensibly addressed by domestic political factions that are more focused on winning the next election than on the threats to their country’s future.
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