The current administration is moving away from the common “war on terror” descriptor. Recently “Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the country’s top military officer have spoken of ‘a global struggle against violent extremism.’”
More from the Internation Herald Tribune (via Drudge)
General Richard 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 extremism, 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.
Will the administration move forward with this same kind of thinking and finally abandon the “war on drugs.” It is far less a military action that than the “struggle against violent extremism.” And hopefully this idea will take root with the left. It is also time for pols to rethink the “war against poverty.”
