Bush administration takes a positive step

[lehighguy]

In addition to what Fishhook said, an integral part of fighting Al Quida is fighting the entire economic, political, and cultural infrastructure that allows them and similair terrorist entities to function.

War on Terror sounds like a good way of encompassing that entire idea.

Sounds like you've succeeded in convincing Bush that treating the symptoms is much better then the causes. Great job guys. I look foward to random bag searches for the next thirty years while we don't do anything to strike at the fundamental causes of terrorism.

[Triumph36]

"Having a war on terror is like having a war on jealousy. You ain't gonna win it." - David Cross

Silly phrase to begin with. Rather than war, it should be 'fight'. Perhaps 'fight against terrorism', though that doesn't have quite the Fox News whoosh that war on terror did.

[Triumph36]

I always thought War on Terror sounded the other way around, lehigh. It sounded like the symptoms would be fought against (namely, the terror), and the causes left unexamined, because, hey, we've got a War going on here, we don't have time for that.

Wars by definition don't attack causes, they 'treat' symptoms.

[lehighguy]

Well as I said, that's not the way I looked at the "War on Terror". I saw it as a shorthand for a much larger war on the causes of terrorism.

The feeling I've always gotten from the left is they felt we should go after Osama, but do nothing to change the economics, politics, or culture that lead to his creation or allowed him to operate.

[FishHooks]

[ QUOTE ]
Wars by definition don't attack causes, they 'treat' symptoms.

[/ QUOTE ]

What symptom did WW2 treat, I believe we were attacking the cause of a well known Nazi leader named Hitler

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]


White House drops 'war on terror' slogan

WASHINGTON, July 26 (UPI) -- The Bush administration has begun downplaying the "war on terror" in favor of "a global struggle against violent extremism," the New York Times reports.



[/ QUOTE ]

There was once a 'war on poverty’; I assume this has ceased operations. It was a domestic war.

"a global struggle against violent extremism,"

I don't think this wording is any improvement; it is in fact, a step backward. 'War on Terror' is a simple straightforward phrase that works well on many levels and in so many ways and is also easily understood by the throbbing masses. Its propaganda value is very high. The watered down version from the article is too amorphous in the wrong direction, If you understand what I mean.

"a global struggle against violent extremism,"

I assume this would include the US overthrow of the Iraq government.

So you see, this wording change is a bad idea.

-Zeno

[bobman0330]

[ QUOTE ]
"We declared war on terror. We declared war on terror -- it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui " - Jon Stewart

[/ QUOTE ]

If GWB said this, he'd be mocked endlessly... Jon Stewart gets quoted for his wittiness

[mackthefork]

Hopefully this will be the start of the end to using peoples fear as a political tool to win votes in all countries, somehow I doubt it though.

Mack

[Cumulonimbus]

[ QUOTE ]
Well what would you call this "war on terror then?"

[/ QUOTE ]

A War on American Freedoms. Duh.

[Triumph36]

Haha. Did the United States go to war to fight the causes of Hitler's rise? Of course not, that isn't possible. They couldn't send soldiers back in time to battle the Weimar Republic and the Treaty of Versailles.

Osama Bin Laden is not the cause of terrorism, he is a symptom. You make it sound like, by your ludicrous WWII comparison, that if we took out the top of the Al-Qaeda network, that terrorism would end forever. It won't. That is why it is a fight and not a war. We're fighting against the symptoms and the causes.