President Makes It Clear: Phrase Is 'War on Terror'

[mopaul]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/politics/04bush.html?hp&ex=1123214400&en=586cede8db00acaa&ei=5094&partner=homepage

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.

In recent public appearances, Mr. Rumsfeld and senior military officers have avoided formulations using the word "war," and some of Mr. Bush's top advisers have suggested that the administration wanted to jettison what had been its semiofficial wording of choice, "the global war on terror."

In an interview last week about the new wording, Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, said that the conflict was "more than just a military war on terror" and that the United States needed to counter "the gloomy vision" of the extremists and "offer a positive alternative."

But administration officials became concerned when some news reports linked the change in language to signals of a shift in policy. At the same time, Mr. Bush, by some accounts, told aides that he was not happy with the new phrasing, a change of tone from the wording he had consistently used since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. No, no, no.... it's it's the struggle against IEWDNBIFSWHTUTAAWTTTSTCOTFW

(UNITY Conference of Minority Journalists Aug 2004)

PRESIDENT: We actually misnamed the war on terror, it ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world. (Laughter.)

http://slapnose.com/archives/2004/08/09/the_war_on_iewdnbifswhtutaawtttstcotfw/

[Disturbed]

4. This arrogant fool insists that he is the WAR Prez.

He and his warmonger thugs started two wars and he is just itchin' to start another. Damnit! Why can't some former CIA agents use their special training to rid this country of the War Criminals that staged a coup on America and have turned it into Amerika?

[NewJeffCT]

2. flip-flop, flip-flop

how many different names do we have for it now?

[RobertSeattle]

3. Sounds like the makings of an Abott and Costello Routine

A: What do you think about the War on Terror?
C: WOT?
A: I said, What do you think about the War on Terror?
C: It's now G-SAVE
A: G-SAVE What?
C: It's G-SAVE, not WOT.
...

[wli]

5. Sein Kampf ist gegen uns (his struggle is against us)

It means they're coming for us. The death squads are coming out. Thousands of Americans are missing. The Homeland Offense Gestapo and the FBI are snooping on peaceful protesters. They're prosecuting Democrats while letting Republicans off the hook. They're refusing to investigate Republican election fraud and embezzlement while fabricating charges against ACLU lawyers.

But the most compelling fact of all is what the police are doing during WTO protests. They're killing and mutilating us with impunity, and are using Rex 84 detention camps.

[radfringe]

6. it's clear he doesn't know what it is

it's a war, no it's a struggle, no it's a conflict, no it's a police action, no it's a.... awww shucks I don't know what it is anymore

one thing is very clear - it's a mess

[mopaul]

7. "It's two, two, two wars in one"!

[radfringe]

11. is it a war or a struggle?

only his spin doctor knows for sure....

just my humble theory about the reverse-reversal of names --

it's a question of symantics -- a struggle implies it's long, drawn-out, and slow movement with no definite end in site.

whereas calling it a war evokes images of action, quick and decisive and it will end sometime....

[Solly Mack]

8. I didn't take it for a shift in policy, I took it for a change in lies

they were going to tell...

WW1 stayed WW1
WW2 stayed WW2
Korean War became the Korean Conflict
Vietnam War became the Vietnam Police Action
Persian Gulf War 1 stayed the Persian Gulf War 1
Iraqi War/War on Terror is now the Struggle against violent extremism (as opposed to the other kinds of extremism I suppose)

See a pattern?

[neweurope]

9. Now that's simple. He's managed to learn one phrase by heart

which was short and simple: "war'n terra". Now he's supposed to say "global struggle against violent extremism"??! Now come ON, Rovecheney, you KNOW he can't even repeat it after you.


That the puppeteers ARE using "global struggle against violent extremism" now - that is not good, though. I really think it means a shift in policy or rather a blunter way to put what they've been meaning all along. It's still not all that easy to call a teacher from Idaho or whichever harmless person a "terrorist". "Extremism" the people is much likelier to swallow...
---------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[charlie]

10. Haha, the little dweeb has run off his leash

He actually thinks he's in charge. Now Rummy, Condi, and Rove will have to deal with that horror.

(or maybe Dick gave him "Daddy sez it's okay" permission)

[Swamp Rat]

12. Rumsfeld Says There Can Be No Moderate Solutions to Extremism

"Rumsfeld Says There Can Be No Moderate Solutions to Extremism" - Here comes the Storm Troopers, our modern day version of the Waffen-SS: The SSB (Security Support Branch)... Should we call it the Rumsfeld "Schutz-Staffel Branche?"



Op-ed by U.S. Secretary of Defense
(This op-ed by Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, appeared August 1 in the Financial Times and is in the public domain. There are no republication restrictions.)

There Can Be No Moderate Solutions To Extremism

By Donald Rumsfeld

Last month Britain was twice attacked by an enemy that takes advantage of the openness of free societies to kill and terrorise from within. Shortly after the July 7 massacre, one American, summarising the sentiments of his countrymen, wrote to the British embassy in Washington: "Anyone who would attack London must not know history. The people who did this will find that while you can never have a better friend than the British, you can also never have a more fearsome enemy."

In the wake of such an atrocity it is essential that we take care in understanding what motivates -- and does not motivate -- extremists to commit mass murder. As they have in previous attacks, the extremists and their sympathisers will offer the usual empty justifications. In the past, these have included a range of real and imagined affronts going back centuries, including, but not limited to: US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia after 1991 to deter an attack by Saddam Hussein; the founding of Israel in 1948; the break-up of the Ottoman Empire some 80 years ago; the reconquest of Spain from the Moors in 1492; and the Crusades, the first of which was in 1095.

Chief among these today is the coalition's campaign against extremists worldwide and the so-called "occupation" of Muslim countries by the west. In fact, coalition forces operate in Afghanistan and Iraq at the request of democratically elected governments. It is the extremists, not the coalition, who are intentionally targeting and killing countless Muslim civilians in a series of barbaric attacks in recent months.

Some seem to believe that accommodating extremists' demands -- including retreating from Afghanistan and Iraq -- might put an end to their grievances, and, with them, future attacks. But consider that when terrorists struck America on September 11, 2001, a radical Islamist government ruled Afghanistan and harboured al-Qaeda leaders, virtually undisturbed by the international community. And Saddam Hussein tightly clung to power in Iraq, and appeared to be winning support for his efforts to end United Nations sanctions.

In reality, Islamic extremists have long demonstrated an interest in attacking Britain. In January 2003, British police thwarted a likely planned attack using ricin -- a poisonous agent -- two months before Operation Iraqi Freedom began.

And in the two decades before September 11, long before coalition involvement in Afghanistan or Iraq, extremists killed or kidnapped hundreds of innocent civilians in places such as Tehran, Beirut, Saudi Arabia, Berlin, New York, on ships in the Mediterranean and a jet over Scotland.

The extremists do not seek a negotiated settlement with the west. They want America and Britain and other coalition allies to surrender our principles and commitment to Muslim friends around the world. In 2002, Osama bin Laden advocated the overthrow of moderate Muslim governments. And the fantasies of al-Qaeda and its ilk to impose intolerance and indoctrination extend far beyond the Middle East. In particular, the extremists are enraged by equality for women and the freedom of expression that are the hallmarks of free societies.

Just a few days after the first London attack, an extremist accused of murdering a Dutch filmmaker over a film deemed offensive to Islam stated openly that he would kill again if given the chance. There is no "separate peace" to be had with such an enemy.

The attacks of September 11 roused a nation and a civilisation to anger and action. Since then, the extremists have lost sanctuaries and popular support in Afghanistan and Iraq, and are being hunted down on every continent by an unprecedented global coalition.

They have struck back using everything from knapsacks to cars to kill hundreds of innocent people in places such as Spain, Turkey, Kenya, Indonesia, Russia and, now, London. They seek to destroy things they could never build in 1,000 years and kill people they could never persuade.

They failed on September 11. They are failing in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, knowing what we know about the British people, in attacking London the extremists have no doubt failed again.

http://usinfo.state.gov/mena/Archive/2005/Aug/02-556642.html

[TalkingDog]

13. GSAVE means the world can kick our asses.

Invading another country on the flimsiest of pretexts, torturing innocent men, women and children, squashing the civil rights of the citizens of it's own country, stealing elections....

Our current administration consists of violent extremists....that's why B**h can't say the words. Well, that and he's an idiot.