Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

[Ed Note: I wrote this story yesterday but never got it posted on penguin for technical reasons, thought it was worth putting it up a day late, even after the apparent difference of opinion within the administration over the correct phrase.]

The other day the Daily Show had a clip of Donald Rumsfeld slipping up in a recent speech and referring to the "war on terror" and then suddenly changing to "um, er, the struggle against extremism". As such is the new party line, its a whole new PR campaign from the Bush dministration.

The "Global War on Terror" is now the Global Struggle Against Extremism. And in addition, its taboo to call it a "war" now, war seems to have "negative" and "military" connotations.

The Bush administration has stated that they would also like to change, along with the slogan (the aspect which is getting all the press coverage of late, the slogan itself rather than the hopeful change in tactics) from fighting the terrorists to fighting the ideology and understanding the root causes and addressing them (something thats a great idea, and was a great idea also before the "invasion" of Iraq which never had anything to do with the GWOT or the GSAE - until AFTER the US invaded that nation).

I argued for trying to understand the root causes and the ideology and deal with the generations of pissed off fanatic religious drones BEFORE the war with Iraq. I got a lot of static about that viewpoint here on TotSP.

Despite the static, and despite the fact that now I happen to agree with the Bush administration rhetoric (yet to see if its more than a slogan as they say it is), and despite that this change is years too late in my opinion (and not just the Bush administration years too late, but the Clinton, Bush Sr, and Reagan administrations also dropped the ball on understanding terrorism and extremism - especially in Islamic and Arabic countries where the US was operating and providing weapons and training one way or another for the last 3 decades) I still feel that its the right move.

If the Bush administration is serious about addressing the ideology and figuring out why the hate and ignorance exists, rather than just trying to bomb it away, then the world is on a far better course than I ever thought possible with said administration.

And again, while I agree with the supposed new Bush approach, I will believe it when I see it.

The Bush administrations new PR campaign is on the right track. Hopefully the *actual* actions of the administration will follow.

Daily Show: Reference to Global Struggle Against Extremism - on FootnoteTV

* Reference to Global Struggle Against Extremism. The New York Times reported on July 25 that the Bush administration was shifting its language from the "global war on terror" to "global struggle against extremism," citing administration officials who said that the phrase overly focused attention on military actions. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld referred to the "global struggle against the enemies of freedom, the enemies of civilization" in a July 22 speech and General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a July 26 speech that he had objected to the use of the phrase.

Administration spokesmen discussed the phrase further in a July 26 briefing (on-line here), win which they reiterated the appropriateness of the "global war on terror" phrase while acknowledging some limitations. Defense Department spokesman Larry Di Rita said that "we are indeed in a global war on terror" but noted that more than military activity was needed. Lieutenant General James T. Conway said that the phrase "'global war on terrorism' translates pretty well into the various languages. So I think that continues to make it a part of the discussion." At the same time, he noted that terrorism was "a tactic and it's not a tangible with which you engage. Global, I think,
is appropriate, both in terms of the nature of the threat and in terms of the nature of the number of countries that are engaged. So I think that part of [the phrase] certainly needs to stand."