I’ve long been weary of the term the ‘global war on terror’ because it is misleading in the sense that it should be a war against Islamism. So when I heard the House Armed Services Committee has passed a measure to effectively ban the term from the collective jargon of the U.S. government, I reacted with mixed emotions.
Will the Democrats in charge of the committee roll out a more prefered term or do something incredibly misleading their own? It appears to be the latter.
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.”
What this does is it separates the different conflicts, thus it misleads the American people into believing there is a difference between the war in Northern Africa, in the Phillipines, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and so on. But they are not different in that they are all confronting the very same Islamist movement.
Despite Conaton stating that the reasoning behind this switch is not political, that’s a farce in its own. By differentiating the different conflicts they are preparing to switch horses in one or more of those battlefields. The specific names as proposed by the Committee highlight specific battlefields, while the collective phrase they suggest is “ongoing military operations throughout the world?” Military operations against whom?
Flashback to ‘Confusion on Capitol Hill.’
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JAMIE WILLSON - 
gary - 
Lars - 
Chad - 
Harry F. Langhorne -
I’ve always hated being partisan. Heck, I voted for Nader in 2000 (or during what I like to call, “ul-Jaahiliyyah” or “The Age of Ignorance“) just to shake things up because politics was all Lockbox and Strategery back then.
Now I’m starting to realize that the Republican party is only serious political party emerging to combat this crisis; however, there is still too much political correctness and too many Chuck Hegel types for me to have any confidence in them for the future.
Dear God I hope Rudy wins.
Comment by Jimmy the Dhimmi — Wednesday, April 4, 2007 @ 1:46 pm CDT
I might ridicule your Nader vote, but I didn’t vote in 1996 or 2000 so I don’t have any room to talk.
But to your point on the only serious party with caveats, I too am not convinced the Republican Party is serious. There are members of both parties who at least seem serious, but there are too many outliers. Granted there sure appear to be more in higher positions within the Democratic Party, but there’s Hagel whom you mentioned, Spector, Rice of late and many more.
Guiliani appears he gets it more than other candidates. You won’t hear me commend McCain for much of anything, but he might too other than his disasterous piece of legislation co-sponsored with Kennedy. Clinton, for all her other failures, at least talks the talk part of the time and depending on the crowd. Which Clinton will govern though? The hawk or the “let’s chat?”
What’s funny to me is how Guiliani has been painted of late. He’s a RINO, been married three times(?), dumped his wife at a press conference, pro-abortion, etc. I just don’t care about any of those issues more than fighting Islamism. The issue that might get him into trouble with the security crowd is the NYFD backing Clinton, though that once again opens the debate of how does a mayor prepare for that type of an attack. Now the answer is obvious, but I’m not certain it was on September 10, 2001. It’s hard for me to fault someone for not seeing something I never would have.
Comment by Chad — Wednesday, April 4, 2007 @ 3:41 pm CDT