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.
I'm all for replacing the term GWOT. It's a euphamism anyway. We are in a global war on Wahabbism. "Terror" is a cop out, and one that has complicated and prolonged our understanding of the enemy.
The Democrats reason for discontinuing the term is, of course, abjectly political. But it may open the door for a more appropriate replacement.