Out of the Loop on GSAVE

I hadn't gotten around to the end of the War on Terror, or at least the end of the brand "War on Terror," that the White House appeared to push last week. Which is funny, because apparently they're now backtracking on the backtrack. Originally, the idea was to change the name from "global war on terror" (GWOT) to "global struggle against violent extremism" (GSAVE!), mainly because, in the words of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers, "because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution."

Well, apparently the President thinks people in uniform ARE the solution.

I also want to talk to you about national security. Make no mistake about it, we are at war. We're at war with an enemy that attacked us on September the 11th, 2001. We're at war against an enemy that, since that day, has continued to kill. They have killed in Madrid and Istanbul and Jakarta and Casablanca and Riyadh and Bali and London and elsewhere....

...Make no mistake about it, this is a war against people who profess an ideology, and they use terror as a means to achieve their objectives....

...To win this war on terror, we will use all elements of national power. We will use our military...

...See, it's a different kind of war. In the old days you'd have armies that were funded by states. You knew where they were, you could trace them. This war is against killers who hide, and then they show up and kill innocent life, and then they retreat. And so you've got to have good intelligence in order to defeat them...

Wow, somebody didn't get the memo.

I thought the rebranding into a struggle from a war represented a real admission of error, which this President is just highly unlikely to do. It hewed closer to John Kerry's way of looking at how to defeat this threat. That's why it seemed completely odd to me that they'd change it. And now we know that they haven't. Or at least Bush hasn't; he can still go out and talk to the masses in his base and say "war on terra" and get the crowds amped up with fear.

But I think Bush actually put this whole thing best himself, before last year's RNC:

Lauer: “You said to me a second ago, one of the things you'll lay out in your vision for the next four years is how to go about winning the war on terror. That phrase strikes me a little bit. Do you really think we can win this war on terror in the next four years?”

President Bush: “I have never said we can win it in four years.”

Lauer: “So I’m just saying can we win it? Do you see that?”

President Bush: “I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world –- let's put it that way.

No, I don't think you can win it either, dude.

P.S. George Lakoff maybe hits the nail on why it's a war, again:

What is most important is what is not being said. The Bush administration is implicitly, through the use of language, admitting that war won't stop terrorism and that the war in Iraq had no justification. Important questions arise and must be asked: If this is not a "war," does the president still have the war powers given him by Congress? If there is no "war" anymore, how can there be "enemy combatants" in Guantanamo, whose imprisonment without due process is being justified by "war." If there is no "war," will we still need to call up the reserves and the National Guard? And is the new framing retroactive? Was there ever a "war" on terror? Was it just mistake to think so?