Correction: 'War on Terror'now 'Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism'
international |
anti-war / imperialism |
other press
Wednesday July 27, 2005 14:45
by redjade
Killing Muslims goes Politically Correct - or is this Blairism in the White House?
'....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...'
Rummy uses hand gestures so Muslims will understand
New Name for 'War on Terror' Reflects Wider U.S. Campaign
July 26, 2005
by the New York Times
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0726-01.htm
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."
Although the military is heavily engaged in the mission now, he said, future efforts require "all instruments of our national power, all instruments of the international communities' national power." The solution is "more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military," he concluded.
[....]
Lawrence Di Rita, Mr. Rumsfeld's spokesman, said the shift in language "is not a shift in thinking, but a continuation of the immediate post-9/11 approach."
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Comments (28 of 28)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28yes this is Blairism in the white house.
for a more complete answer, check out Cherie Blair's statement on "the rule of law" today [a key point of the Queen of engurland's statement on 7/7 which precluded serious misgivings on 22/7 in the back halls of power] and the Pope, [pope?!] yes the Pope. The UN are currently defining "terrorism" in a way acceptable to "civilised nations", and have to get round the Israel/Palestine thing, and Pope left Israel off the list of victims other day, to Isreal's dismay, and the delight of the arab league who can accept a "civilised nation" definition of terror, which avoids the IDF v. Suicide bombers there.
Every word is important. Blairism is really coming into its global heyday. Told you it would. & I ye won't like it.
not one bit.
Meanwhile, the TASAR just got its first publically acceptable use today. I'm sure brazil will be delighted.
USAToday Poll:
For the first time, a majority of Americans, 51%, say the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — the reason Bush emphasized in making the case for invading. The administration’s credibility on the issue has been steadily eroding since 2003.
By 58%-37%, a majority say the United States won’t be able to establish a stable, democratic government in Iraq.
About one-third, 32%, say the United States can’t win the war in Iraq. Another 21% say the United States could win the war, but they don’t think it will. Just 43% predict a victory.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-07-26-poll-us-not-winning-iraq_x.htm
-- -- -- --
• Maybe even worse than that for Bush...
Bush approval ratings
Approve 41
Disapprove 53
Quinnipiac Univ. Poll
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/27/104944/757
-- -- --
Thoughts on above....
''So, here’s my question: from the polls above, one learns that a majority of the public believes that the war in Iraq was sold on a lie, and will end in defeat. One might well conclude from this that the second war, the PR war, is being lost. Now, following from our argument in the previous paragraph, it would seem logical that this sort of poll would be likely to undermine the resolve of right-wing pundits, leading us to actually lose the war on the homefront, thereby undermining the troops in the field, and, thereby, losing the GWOT entirely. Naturally, the only proper response to this is to open a third front on the GWOT, where whoever isn’t fighting on the first two battlefields takes the fight directly to the American public - physically, rhetorically, or both - in order to ensure that our brave right-wing pundits can fight the good fight against the free press, human rights organizations, and people who don’t see what a picture of 9/11 has to do with Iraq, even if you sandwich it between a picture of the Khobar Towers and the USS Cole.''
http://www.thepoorman.net/2005/07/27/question/
-- -- --
Also See:
Bush Nuremberg Rally a Dud
'Terror', 'Terrorism' or 'Terrorists' spoken 33 times in 28 minutes
Jun 29 2005
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70514
The Iraq mess
July 27, 2005
Toledo Blade Editorial (Ohio)
In the meantime, the U.S. Army said this month that it has signed another extension of its contract with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root for another $5 billion to support U.S. forces in Iraq. The Army had not seen fit to announce the extension when it awarded it in May, in spite of the fact that some of Halliburton's previous billing, which has netted it $9 billion so far in the war, was disputed.
None of this has much to do with American elections, or Republican and Democratic wrangling. Mr. Bush will be president until January, 2009, whatever his ratings might be. The Congress shows itself as largely irrelevant to what is going on in Iraq, apart from being required to vote the money to finance the war, now running at about $5 billion a month.
It is increasingly clear that this war will not be won in any way that can be discerned as victory, and, in the meantime, it is draining America's blood away, in the lives of our soldiers and in resources that could be used to meet other needs.
But Vice President Cheney apparently didn't get the memo.
At a fundraising lunch yesterday, Cheney referred to the "war on terror" twice, the "war against determined enemies" once -- and not a peep about struggles or extremism.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/07/26/BL2005072600868_pf.html
Mr. Rumsfeld also called on the Iraqi government to assume greater responsibility over time for the 15,000 detainees now in American custody in Iraq; to allocate enough money in future Iraqi budgets to field security forces that are capable of replacing many of the 22,000 foreign allied forces that plan to leave Iraq by year's end; and to improve cooperation between the Iraqi defense and interior ministries to enhance the combat readiness of Iraq's 170,000 military and paramilitary police forces.
Quoted from the NY Times
more here
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/27/181539/345
Parliamentary elections this September in Afghanistan are intended to provide the next showcase moment for the US-led "global war on terror". But according to new independent assessments, security surrounding the polls is threatened by a new wave of insurgent attacks and the stability of the country remains on a knife-edge.
British defence officials are concerned the US could prematurely declare "mission accomplished" once the national assembly and provincial council votes are over.
The worry is that Pentagon pressure to cut US troop levels could leave Britain holding the baby when it assumes command of Nato's security assistance force next spring.
[....]
The possibility the US may declare a democratic triumph in September even if the polls are flawed, and begin withdrawing troops, is worrying for Afghans, the UN and NGOs.
Guardian
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0727-06.htm
Oil and Blood
By BOB HERBERT
July 28, 2005
NY Times Op/Ed
http://tinyurl.com/8kx5y
[Bush] could declare victory, as a senator once suggested to Lyndon Johnson in the early years of Vietnam, and bring the troops home as quickly as possible.
His mantra would be: There's a government in place. We won. We're out of there.
But don't count on it. The Bush administration has no plans to bring the troops home from this misguided war....
It's the oil, stupid.
What has so often gotten lost in all the talk about terror and weapons of mass destruction is the fact that for so many of the most influential members of the Bush administration, the obsessive desire to invade Iraq preceded the Sept. 11 attacks. It preceded the Bush administration. The neoconservatives were beating the war drums on Iraq as far back as the late 1990's.
Iraq was supposed to be a first step. Iran was also in the neoconservatives' sights. The neocons envisaged U.S. control of the region (and its oil), to be followed inevitably by the realization of their ultimate dream, a global American empire. Of course it sounds like madness, which is why we should have been paying closer attention from the beginning.
[....]
The point here is that the invasion of Iraq was part of a much larger, long-term policy that had to do with the U.S. imposing its will, militarily when necessary, throughout the Middle East and beyond. The war has gone badly, and the viciousness of the Iraq insurgency has put the torch to the idea of further pre-emptive adventures by the Bush administration.
But dreams of empire die hard. American G.I.'s are dug into Iraq, and the bases have been built for a long stay. The war may be going badly, but the primary consideration is that there is still a tremendous amount of oil at stake, the second-largest reserves on the planet. And neocon fantasies aside, the global competition for the planet's finite oil reserves intensifies by the hour.
A prestigious US political research body has accused the US government of giving impetus to Iraq's insurgency through a lack of post-war planning.
A Council on Foreign Relations study said the decision that reconstruction would not need any more forces than the invasion was a critical miscalculation.
[....]
"Nation-building is not just a humanitarian concern, but a critical national security priority that should be on par with war-fighting," it said.
"The failure to take this phase of conflict as seriously as initial combat operations has had serious consequences for the United States, not just in Iraq but, more broadly, for international efforts to stabilise and rebuild nations after conflict."
Specifically, it said the perceived failure to prepare properly for the post-war period had given an "early impetus for the insurgency".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4723281.stm
http://www.cfr.org/
Rummy &+ pal looking for a way out?
Satan: "Just What do you have against George anyway? Why he's like a Son to me."
Word around D.C. is that the Bush camp has finally realized something profound. Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, explained on Monday that the solution to extremism has turned out to be "more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield has debuted the new lingo recently. Now America is embroiled in "a global struggle against violent extremism."
[....]
Sadly, even when it appears that the White House and Pentagon are changing their priorities (and the names of our wars), I am struck by how a group of intelligent and educated people could take so long to see the grave error of their ignorance.
White House switch is more than mere words
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/opinion/86118.php
We find it significant that the White House is switching its wartime slogan from "a global war on terror" to "a global struggle against violent extremism."
The word "terror" is gone from this struggle, and we see the change as acknowledgement that this nation, or any other nation, cannot wage a conventional military war on terror. It affirms what many have known for years. While we are still in fight against terror, and whatever we choose to call it, it is a fight that will never be won on a battlefield.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, for example, has recently spoken of "a global struggle against violent extremism."
That makes sense. In recent years the United States has pretty much worn out the symbolic usefulness of "war." Our nation fought a war in Vietnam with no real understanding of what might be required to win it. We lost.
When we declared war on drugs and war on poverty, we made some progress. But when faced with the costs -- political as well as fiscal -- of winning, we settled for a stalemate.
Neither will we win a war on violent extremists if by winning we mean removing the problem once and for all. The bombings in Oklahoma City and at the Atlanta Olympics, both the work of native-born extremists, are reminders that we've always had terrorists. So has England, with its long history of conflict over Northern Ireland. The Islamic extremists are a different, highly dangerous variety of an old disorder. Some of them hate our way of life. Others object to specific political policies. We can learn to contain them, but we probably can't eradicate them.
The modern world produces a small number of murderous malcontents, and modern technology, easy mobility and increasing openness of national borders offer them a wealth of opportunities to do great harm.
Against that backdrop, it's tempting to chuckle at the administration's change in terminology and dismiss it as just another public relations gesture. We hope it's more than that.
The U.S. government does not have a rich history of success when it calls one of its programs a "war" unless it involves a real military operation. We've had the "war on hunger," "war on poverty," "war on crime," "war on obesity" and our all-time least-successful, "war on drugs."
[....]
A war on terror? Nah. And, while "a global struggle against violent extremism" might not roll off the tongue, at least it recognizes reality.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/234205_wared.html
War? What War?
By Madeleine Begun Kane
The war on terror's going bad,
So what's a Prez to do?
He simply calls it something else.
The "struggle" has debuted.
Bush starts a war without a plan.
A needless war, to boot.
And when it fails, his course is clear:
Just name it something cute.
Dub's PR folks work overtime.
Their mission's crystal-clear:
To alter views with words, not deeds.
Orwellian days are here.
Instead of Bush disinfo moves,
The truth would be quite nice.
But honesty we'll never hear
From Bush or Condi Rice.
Daily Show: Bush declares victory over the phrase "war on terror"
Windows Media & Quicktime
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/07/28.html#a4196
War on Terror Over
http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/war-on-terror-over-bush-administration.html
The Bush administration is giving up the phrase "global war on terror."
I take it this is because they have finally realized that if they are fighting a war on terror, the enemy is four guys in a gym in Leeds. It isn't going to take very long for people to realize that a) you don't actually need to pay the Pentagon $400 billion a year if that is the problem and b) whoever is in charge of such a war isn't actually doing a very good job at stopping the bombs from going off.
Know Thy Enemy: Not 'violent extremism,' but Islamist terrorism
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/072905dnedipr.1c2f4299.html
So, the administration has been referring to "a global struggle against violent extremism."
That's a mouthful, but it's not the biggest problem with the new catchphrase. It's more troubling that, at a time when Americans are seeking greater clarity about our mission, the words being used to describe it are more vague.
For the best guidance on what to call this war, the Bush administration should look to The 9/11 Commission Report, Page 362, to be exact: "The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific [than terrorism]. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism – especially the al-Qaeda network, its affiliates and its ideology."
"Islamist terrorism" is a far more precise term than what the administration has embraced so far. Finding the right words is difficult and important, so the administration should keep trying. "Islamist terrorism" is a term that explains clearly that this struggle is against a small group of extremists who pervert religious tenets to cloak their evil deeds under the label of religion. If we cannot describe our enemy with such precision, how can we guard ourselves against him? Indeed, how can we defeat him?
On Sept. 12, we knew who the enemy was. As this war evolves, the president must find the right words to renew and maintain that kind of focus.
Bush declines... after only less than one year in his 2nd term.
details at
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/8285
Time for a new war (if only Bush had the troops to do it)
A war by any other name
By Juliette Kayyem
Even in his last publicized news conference, there was no GWOT, and the term "war" was mentioned only once. In contrast, Bush used the d-word (diplomatic or diplomatically) nearly a dozen times.
War, it seems, is so 2004. Despite Vice President Dick Cheney's insistence that the insurgency in Iraq is in its "last throes," it is difficult to look at the summer of 2005 as a success story for counterterrorism efforts. In London, Israel, Egypt and Iraq, civilians and military personnel are being targeted at alarming rates.
The shift to a more, shall we say, nuanced approach to language is no doubt the result of two important realizations. First, the war analogy may have captured our imagination, but it never really captured the true nature of how to counter the threat we faced. Combining military efforts with diplomatic, economic, political and intelligence cooperation has always been how nations successfully counter terrorism. Only the administration's political use of the 9/11 tragedy kept the notion of war alive. It was misleading and distorting.
[....]
With polls suggesting that the American people are now questioning all aspects of the war in Iraq and, along with it, many aspects of the war on terrorism, the war terminology has outlived its usefulness.
But the White House should be prepared for the possibility that its new catchphrase — the global struggle against violent extremism — may not bring the same benefits that GWOT once did. Admittedly, "G-SAVE" has a certain optimistic, selfless sound to it. But no one quite knows what it means. Does it reflect a change in policy? Or just a change in rhetoric?
more at
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kayyem28jul28,0,4402817.story
- Juliette Kayyem, a former member of the National Commission on Terrorism ( http://www.gpo.gov/nct/ )
And if the administration is changing the "brand" to reflect less and less on the military campaign -- it's a likely sign their attempts to tie the Iraq War to the global struggle isn't going as well as the marketers in the White House had hoped.
No word on al Qaeda changing its name anytime soon. Their branding has kept them in business for 1,415 days since 9/11. That's longer than the "Thousand Year Reich" and the "Empire of the Rising Sun" lasted after Pearl Harbor -- just 1,347 days. And let's face it, those names were some serious bad-guy branding.
The "Global War on Terror" hasn't brought Osama bin Laden in -- "dead or alive." Maybe a flashy new name, like "The Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism" will.
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/07/27/094325.php
...it is really no surprise that the Bush Administration has rebranded its War on... Conspiracy theorists might suggest that the "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism," expresses the Administrations Christian agenda with respect to the world. Acronymically, this rebranded "Struggle" is G-SAVE, that some might suggest refers to America "saving" the globe, or perhaps God Saves. If it was a "journey" instead of a struggle, we would have J-SAVE, but I would never suggest such a thing. Oh no, not I!
from
http://whatisthemessage.blogspot.com/2005/07/marketing-and-branding-war.html
Say G-WOT?
Terror attacks, Taliban resurgence, suicide bombs—obviously, it's time to change the slogan.
By Fred Kaplan
http://slate.msn.com/id/2123412/
It took four years for the president of the United States to realize that fighting terrorism has a political component? It took six months for his senior advisers to retool a slogan? We are witnessing that rare occasion when the phrase "I don't know whether to laugh or cry" can be uttered without lapsing into cliché.
But the shallowness gets deeper still. The Times story doesn't notice what appears to be the driving force behind the new slogan—a desire for a happier acronym.
Look at the first letters of Global War on Terrorism. GWOT. What does that mean; how is it pronounced? Gwot? Too frivolously rowdy, like a fight scene in a Marvel comic book (Bam! Pfooff! Gwot!). Gee-wot? Sounds like a garbled question (Gee what?).
Then look at Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. Its acronym is GSAVE—i.e., gee-save. We're out to save the world, see, not wage war on it. Or, as national security adviser Stephen Hadley puts it in the Times piece, "We need to dispute both the gloomy vision and offer a positive alternative."
Is the Bush administration's decision to de-emphasize use of the phrase "war on terror" an unheralded concession to last year's unsuccessful Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Kerry of Massachusetts?
The White House says no, but some of Mr. Kerry's backers contend the recent move to recalibrate the rhetoric of top administration officials away from the "global war on terror" and toward a "global struggle against violent extremism" amounts to a quiet vindication of the four-term Democratic senator.
"I think John Kerry had it right and the president had it wrong," a former senator of Nebraska, Robert Kerrey, said in an interview. "It's largely a recognition of what most people who have followed this have concluded long ago, which is that terrorism is a tactic that is used by certain extreme groups," Mr. Kerrey, who is president of the New School University, said.
"Words matter," a former ambassador to the United Nations and top foreign policy adviser to Mr. Kerry, Richard Holbrooke, said. "They were just playing campaign hardball. They were wrong on this. They fixed it."
You had to be a careful reader of the inside pages of the Times last week to notice that America is no longer fighting the global war on terrorism. The Administration has replaced, or revised, or expanded the G.W.O.T. with a new phrase: “a global struggle against violent extremism.” The war is now a struggle. The terrorist enemy is now the violent extremist enemy. The focus has shifted from a tactic to an ideology.
[....]
These recognitions are late in coming. Arguments for a broader, deeper, more nuanced strategy appeared in the report of the 9/11 Commission, a year ago. They were the basis for a sixteen-billion-dollar national-security bill that was introduced by Senate Democrats in January, and is currently going nowhere. At the Pentagon, they date back to October of 2003, to a memorandum in which Rumsfeld candidly asked, “Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?” Almost two years later, in the summer of Sharm al-Sheikh, Netanya, London, and Baghdad (where 7/7 is an average day), the answer is no. Jihadis are crossing the borders into Iraq, for example, far faster than they can be killed or kill themselves. A recent study by an Israeli researcher shows that they are predominantly young Saudis, inflamed by footage of the fighting in Iraq and by incendiary sermons from their imams. Do they hate us for who we are, or for what we do? That turns out to be the wrong question. Most of the new jihadis had no connection to terrorism before the Iraq war; the American occupation has filled them with fantasies of violent death. But they come largely from a region in Saudi Arabia where the most extreme Islamist ideology was already flourishing, directed against Shiite Muslims as well as against “crusaders and Jews.” They have the sympathy of millions of fellow-travellers. The war in Iraq is the trigger, not the reason, for their self-annihilation.
No victory has been declared; there are no "winners" or "losers." Nevertheless, the "war" is over. After nearly four years of drumming up support for the war on terrorism, you won't hear mention of it in the Bush administration anymore.
If anyone thinks that signals a change of policy, think again. The change is limited to one of semantics. The "war" isn't going well; it is not getting the public support sought by the White House.
[....]
Perhaps the next change coming from the Bush administration will be a softening of the Department of Homeland Security's color code informing us just how worried we should be about an attack by terrorists. Or should that be violent extremists?
Instead of red, orange and yellow, perhaps pink, peach and amber would be less harsh and more fitting in a Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism.
Maybe the new label for whatever it is we're engaged in is still a bit too discomforting.
Why not call it Moderates' Efforts Seeking Security, or MESS?
What about Worldwide Initiative Mandating Peace?
Rewording the ''war on terror'
After four years of the “war on terror”, the White House has instructed its senior defence officials to expunge the phrase from their vocabulary, replacing it with a “global struggle against violent extremism”. Why? Because calling that struggle a “war” would suggest that the military was somehow responsible for winning it.
http://meionline.com/newsanalysis/391.shtml
--- --- ---
Post-Postwar (PPW)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR2005080201673.html
Former State Department counterterrorism official Larry C. Johnson reported on his blog yesterday that the Global War on Terrorism, or GWOT, or The WOT, "may still be alive."
A couple months ago, our colleague, Susan B. Glasser , reported that the Bush administration was undertaking a major review of its strategy on counterterrorism, and that officials wanted to change the name GWOT to something like GSAVE -- Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. That would take into account the changed nature of the battle against international terrorism.
"GWOT is catchy," a senior administration official said then, "but there may be a better way to describe it."
In fact, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld 10 days ago spoke about a "global struggle against violent extremism [GSAVE]."
Apparently nobody told President Bush . At a White House meeting of senior officials Monday, Johnson wrote, "Bush reportedly said he was not in favor of the new term . . . In fact, he said, 'no one checked with me.' That comment brought an uncomfortable silence to the assembled group of pooh-bahs. The president insisted it was still a war as far as he is concerned."
By yesterday, Rumsfeld was back to GWOT in his prepared remarks to a Dallas business group.
"We do not discuss internal meetings at the White House," a spokesman there said, adding that a look at "the president's speeches over the last four years clearly demonstrates that our nation is at war."
You GWOT that?
To counter the Bush administration perhaps we need a 'Global War On Dumbness' (GWOD).
President Makes It Clear Phrase Is 'War on Terror'
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
Published: August 4, 2005
GRAPEVINE, Tex., Aug. 3 - President Bush publicly overruled some of his top advisers on Wednesday in a debate about what to call the conflict with Islamic extremists, saying, "Make no mistake about it, we are at war."
In a speech here, Mr. Bush used the phrase "war on terror" no less than five times. Not once did he refer to the "global struggle against violent extremism," the wording consciously adopted by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other officials in recent weeks after internal deliberations about the best way to communicate how the United States views the challenge it is facing.
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_31_atrios_archive.html#112312566232566737