Obama administration snuffs global war on terror (the term anyway)

Now we know why President Obama could be so dismissive in his Sunday "60 Minutes" interview of former Vice President Cheney's recent criticisms and concerns over the new Democratic administration's national security policies.

All these years of political and military struggle and controversies, the Senate debates and votes, Obama's long-lost antiwar speech, the Democratic primary campaign arguments and non-apologies last year, all of that fighting over the Iraq fighting and the global war on terror.

And in less than 10 weeks the new no-drama Obama crowd has ended the global war on terror. And all it needed was a simple memo. Not even an executive order. Why didn't anyone else think of this?

Welcome word just in from the Washington Post's ever-alert Al Kamen that the global war on terror is over, gone, kaput, finito.

Kamen confirms persistent recent reports that war has been declared on at least the term "global war on terror" as well as another suspiciously Republican phrase -- "long war." They've been ordered ended internally by the Obama administration. So we can all relax and maybe even release everyone from Guantanamo.

Kamen obtained an e-mail from Dave Reidel in the Office of Security Review saying, "This Administration prefers to avoid using the term 'Long War' or 'Global War on Terror' (GWOT). Please use 'Overseas Contingency Operation.' " Reidel asked memo recipients to spread the word to speechwriters and others.

Kamen quotes a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget as denying the existence of such a linguistic guidance memo.

We'd wondered since the other day when we heard Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano go way out of her way -- almost back to Arizona out of her way, in fact -- to avoid employing the long-used GWOT phrasing. She said her department would be ready for "whatever kind of disaster might strike -- man-caused or natural."

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs denied the existence of such a memo and a Defense Department  spokesman said he'd not been told to use certain language, although "overseas contingency operation" is an Obama budgetary term that has appeared in recent congressional testimony.

Kamen quotes OMB's Kenneth Baer as saying, "There was no memo, no guidance. This is the opinion of a career civil servant."

Which makes it sound like this no-more-global-terror-memo-writing guy has been around quite a while.

But then we got to thinking: If there was no memo and there was no guidance on no longer using the terrifying global war on terror phrase, what exactly then is left to be the mere opinion of a career civil servant?

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Comments

[Pom Pom Girl]

DC Sleeper Cell?
If you were Osama or Al Qaeda in general, you would long to have a sleeper cell within the US government. From there you could undermine the war on terror: freeing enemy combatants, abolishing the term enemy combatant, placing time limits on troop withdrawals, negotiating with terrorist States and alienating your one true ally in the middle east. Furthermore you would work just as hard to undermine the US economy by promoting reckless tax & spend policies that have failed time & again in the past, building huge governmental entitlement programs that will further erode the national economy, make the US dollar worthless and push the country to the brink of bankruptcy.
Osama must be delighted with the new administration.
It’s a good thing there isn't such a sleeper cell at work within our government.........

[Pom Pom Girl]

He is going to surrender isn't he?
We are winning in Iraq and Afghanistan and he is going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

[Carl Wiley]

The changing of terms makes sense. To say it is a global war has the connotation that the US can put its' assets anywhere, anytime and do as we please. The Bush administration was quite consistent on devaluing the soverign rights of other nations if it fit their plans. We as a country are not persuing a Global War on terror any more than I am persuing a Global campaign to promote the Ring of Knowledge. The US needs to finish the messes... I mean jobs in Afghanistan and Iraq and focus on bringing terrorists to justice with the help and cooperation of other nations.

[Elaina]

This Obama plan is great--change the name and the problem goes away. Global war on terror had ended, Fixed!

Wonder how long it will take them to recognize the massive health care savings they could amass by having ER docs just use Photoshop to fix fractures?

[levi]

i agree with some issues that obama brought up during that interview. But you need to understand like 99problems dick is an intelligent politician that knows how to control situations like that. If he only new how to control education reform we would have a much better nation.

[Paul in Maui]

Has anyone done any research? The Rand study on "ending terrorism" concluded that military force is rarely successful. The solution is robust intelligence gathering, support and training of local police, and economic incentives. Once War is declared, there is a "psychological license" for abuses and rationalizing unethical behavior. We delared war on poverty and drugs and those haven't worked out either.

[Democrats 4 Ever]

why, anyone who doesn't think 'terr-r' is important is just an anti Amurcan traitor, yer either with us or against us, mission accomplished, we need to run in fear of terr-r, terr-rists, and ter-rism every day, God bless George Bush for fightin' those terr-ists the libruls are in league with, just like they are all in league with the devil, George kept our country safe, blah blah blah dee blah bllluuuuahhh. Bush is a an ignorant, illiterate, con man, shame on anyone who voted for him. His sick, twisted, greedy, dishonest, over zealous, destructive, policies put America in the poor house, weakened our defenses and made us a mockery world wide. Fanning the flames of terrorism by giving more credibility to the terrorists than they deserve, by making them our only focus like Bush did only lowers us to their level and in essence they win, freedom is gone, fear rules the day, that's exactly what the terrorists want, to be noticed, recognized, significant, to gain status and credibility in this world, and Bush republicans have given them that on a silver platter ten fold. Thank You Hillary, Thank You President Obama, you are little by little restoring our dignity, sanity and intelligence, now let's get this economy humming once again like it was under Bill Clinton, the economic genius. Long live the Democrats!