The "global war on terror" is over

[RickSp]

U.S. Officials Retool Slogan for Terror War

The Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an ideological battle as a military mission, senior administration and military officials said Monday. In recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the nation's senior military officer have spoken of "a global struggle against violent extremism" rather than "the global war on terror," which had been the catchphrase of choice. Administration officials say that phrase may have outlived its usefulness, because it focused attention solely, and incorrectly, on the military campaign. Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the National Press Club on Monday that he had "objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution." He said the threat instead should be defined as violent extremists, with the recognition that "terror is the method they use."

The implications are fascinating. The rationale for the slogan change is even more intriguing. Any opinions on the slogan change?

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: RickSp U.S. Officials Retool Slogan for Terror War The implications are fascinating. The rationale for the slogan change is even more intriguing. Any opinions on the slogan change?

The obvious rationale is preparing the American public for a military pullout from Iraq.

[ibm]

the government has treated their people like tool (granted there are many in the populace). i think if someone has the time to assemble a history of the bush administration rhetorics, it's gonna be near comic.

[ibm]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/rumsfeld;...BhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

withdrawl next spring and summer? is this happening?

[Whodoe!]

Quote by: ibm the government has treated their people like tool (granted there are many in the populace). i think if someone has the time to assemble a history of the bush administration rhetorics, it's gonna be near comic.

Political rhetoric is funny period. Especially when assembled along your preferences.

[Libertarian]

The government has started using a different name so they can shift the main criticism away from the issue. Change the name and it throws people off balance.

[Sonart]

I'm curious to see what the folks at Fox News will have to say about this... when the administration was cranking up the bellicose rhetoric early in the "War on Terror", Fox really lashed out at others who thought we should tone it down. Stay tuned!

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[Libertarian]

Quote by: Sonart I'm curious to see what the folks at Fox News will have to say about this... when the administration was cranking up the bellicose rhetoric early in the "War on Terror", Fox really lashed out at others who thought we should tone it down. Stay tuned! .

Exactly. The republican controled government and consertitive media DOES flip-flop more times than they want to admit and most of them just accuse other groups of fliping there ideals.

[dotcoma]

I hope this is turning into a more economic/broad-ally-based war. We need to do more than fight on the ground. We need to be using our economic might and our diplomatic strength combined with our military to win a much broader war (a culture war).

[Logjam]

Quote by: ibm the government has treated their people like tool (granted there are many in the populace). i think if someone has the time to assemble a history of the bush administration rhetorics, it's gonna be near comic.

Naw, the funny stuff came from Clinton. "I didn't have sex with that women....etc." That was funny. Tragic, but funny nevertheless. AND the rest of the World was laughing.

[Logjam]

Quote by: Zeebadee The obvious rationale is preparing the American public for a military pullout from Iraq.

Won't happen on Bush's watch. Might happen if the Hildebeast is elected.

[ibm]

Quote by: Logjam Naw, the funny stuff came from Clinton. "I didn't have sex with that women....etc." That was funny. Tragic, but funny nevertheless. AND the rest of the World was laughing.

yeah, that too.

but like they said, "when clinton lied, no one died."

[Logjam]

Quote by: ibm yeah, that too. but like they said, "when clinton lied, no one died."

What about the 3,000 that died on 9/11? While Bush was president when it happened all of the planning happened during the Clinton years. You remember those years don't you? You know, the ones where Clinton did nothing to combat terrorism....Remember the USS Cole? Do I need to list more?

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: Logjam Clinton did nothing to combat terrorism

Simplistic overstatement by a Republican partisan. Clinton's quandry was the entire range of international terror relationships, including how to deal with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Taliban and AlQuaeda. They all worked together, and the US had interests everywhere.

In fact Clinton's watch had some significant successes against international terror. Bush has been unsuccessful in reducing the numbers of jihadists, and has even been responsible for creating more of them, according to CIA sources in Iraq.

[Sonart]

Quote by: dotcoma I hope this is turning into a more economic/broad-ally-based war. We need to do more than fight on the ground. We need to be using our economic might and our diplomatic strength combined with our military to win a much broader war (a culture war).

See, you're already missing the point, dot. "War" implies "military" conflict, which, this administration is learning and you outlined, is not a viable solution. So, you're hoping this is turning into a more economic/broad-ally-based "STRUGGLE". We need to be using our might and out diplomatic strength combined with our "LAW ENFORCEMENT" to win a much broader "STRUGGLE" (a culture STRUGGLE).

Quote by: Logjam Naw, the funny stuff came from Clinton. "I didn't have sex with that women....etc." That was funny. Tragic, but funny nevertheless. AND the rest of the World was laughing.

You're right, the rest of the world certainly isn't laughing now. As to your bizarre point, do you actually believe there's a comparison between the 'tragedy' caused by Bill Clinton's lying about a personal affair and the tragedy of tens of thousands of lives lost and shattered, treasure squandered and goodwill lost because of Dear Leader's cowboy rhetoric misleading and mismanaging this nation into an unnecessary and ill-conceived war?

You may want to re-examine your sense of perspective.
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[Sonart]

Quote by: Logjam Clinton did nothing to combat terrorism

Not exactly...

...Clinton had to get busy right away, with the first attack on the World Trade Center occuring about a month after Clinton took office. So the first order of business was to capture, try and convict the perpetrators, Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim and Wali Amin Shah, all now behind bars. You can visit them.

Clinton's administration went on to stop terrorist plots to: kill the Pope, blow up 12 U.S. airliners, the UN headquarters, the FBI building, the Israeli embassy in Washington, the LA and Boston airports, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George Washington bridge and an attack on the U.S. embassy in Tanzania.

Clinton was able to do this after he tripled the counter-terrorism budget for the FBI and doubling counter-terrorism funding overall, along with creating a national security office to coordinate counter-terrorism efforts.

Now of course you'd think the Republicans in Congress would be right there, helping our president fight the evils of terrorism. Well, not exactly. When Clinton proposed increasing our intellegence agencies wiretap authority, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich shot it down. His reasoning? ''When you have an agency that turns nine hundred personal files over to people like Craig Livingstone... it's very hard to justify giving that agency more power.'' That would be a reference to 'Filegate', remember? Yet another Clinton 'Scandal' that congressional investigation proved groundless. We can see where the Republican priorities were.

When Clinton asked Congress for more funds for anti-terrorism efforts, Orrin Hatch said, ''The administration would be wise to utilize the resources Congress has already provided before it requests additional funding.''

When Clinton backed legislation to expand access to banking records, in order to follow illegal money trails, it was killed, on behalf of big banks, by Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas. George Bush will later call for identical legislation.

When Clinton appointed the Gore Commission to review and make recommendations regarding terrorist threats to our airlines, the airline industry vigorously lobbied against it through the GOP run committees as 'too expense'.

And when Clinton supported legislation to make it easier to trace Internet traffic and fight cyber-terrorism, the Republican congress howled. To be fair, so did the far left, who saw the bill as a "plan to strengthen the repressive powers of the federal government".

(Kindly note that since 9/11, Bush and John Ashcroft have pushed legislation for each of these issues.)

Gingrich, however, was more supportive when Clinton hit Sudan and Afghanistan with Tomahawks in 1998. ''The President did exactly the right thing,'' he said. ''By doing this we're sending the signal there are no sanctuaries for terrorists.''

After the embassy bombings in Africa, Clinton issued a directive authorizing the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Alas, the Republicans didn't like that. Seems it conflicted with Saint Ronald's executive order 12333 prohibiting the assassination of heads of state. The fact that Osama bin Laden was not a head of state apparently went right past them.

Then, after the Cole bombing, instead of funding the terrorists like Reagan or ignoring them like Dubya (pre-9/11, of course) Clinton appointed Richard Clarke as the first national anti-terrorism coordinator, tasked with creating a plan to take out al-Queda. He came up with a plan to break up al-Queda cells, arrest their personnel, attack their financial support, freeze their assests, give aid to countries fighting terrorists, and increase covert activity in Afghanistan to wipe out training camps and capture bin Laden. As a Bush official said, Clarke's plan amounted to ''everything we've done since 9/11.''

Then a horrible thing happened. George Dubya Bush took office. From the moment he took office, his administration completely ignored efforts to combat terrorism, prefering to focus on... here it comes... missile defense. Star Wars.

During the transition, NSA Sandy Berger arranged 10 briefings with Bush's new NSA, Condoleeza Rice, assuming they'd realize the threat of terrorist attacks and want to continue Clinton's work.

Nope. In fact, when TIME magazine asked Rice, she ''declined to comment, but through a spokeswoman said she recalled no briefing at which Berger was present''. Unfortunately, the New York Times did a story at the time. Quote: ''As he prepared to leave office last January, Mr. Berger met with his successor, Condoleeza Rice, and gave her a warning. ACCORDING TO BOTH OF THEM, he said that terrorism -- and particularly Mr. bin Laden's brand of it--would consumme for more of her time than she had ever imagined.''

The final ingominy came in February of 2001, when the Hart-Rudman commission issued their final report. In it, they warned that ''mass-casualty terrorism directed against the U.S. homeland was of serious and growing concern.'' Their advice? Create a new federal agency, ''A National Homeland Security Agency with responsibility for planning, coordinating, and integrating various U.S. government activities involved in homeland security.''

Bush's response? Zip! Zilch! Nada! Nicht!

Nope, Bush was busy spending 42% of his first seven months in office either at Camp David, Kennebunkport or Crawford, Texas, spending important quality time with his wife and his dog. Not until after 9/11 did Bush decide to put in action everything that Clinton's team had tried so hard to get past Republicans.

Ironical, huh!"

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[Zeebadee]

Quote by: Logjam Won't happen on Bush's watch. Might happen if the Hildebeast is elected.

Evidently it's already in the works...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050727/D8BJUIK04.html

[lathurberk]

If you want to recall funny things with regard to American troop withdrawls, how about the way the Clinton Administration broke the luxon barrier bugging out of Somalia, when their fingers got pinched? Osama is still howling over that one. Or perhaps you are more amused by our interminable withdrawl from the Balkans? Do you pine for the heady humor of the good old days? I don't.

[lathurberk]

I'm sure the Jihadists would be surprised to learn that they were created by George W. Bush.

[Sonart]

Quote by: lathurberk If you want to recall funny things with regard to American troop withdrawls, how about the way the Clinton Administration broke the luxon barrier bugging out of Somalia, when their fingers got pinched? Osama is still howling over that one. Or perhaps you are more amused by our interminable withdrawl from the Balkans?

Is there some reason you want to play this game, lathurberk? Cuz I think St. Ronald holds the withdrawal speed record bugging out of Beirut after getting 230-odd American Marines blown to bits.

Quote by: lathurberk I'm sure the Jihadists would be surprised to learn that they were created by George W. Bush.

They certainly were in Iraq.

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