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Wars of Words
One of my former students linked on Facebook to an artice, The Washington Post's "White Houst: 'War on Terrorism' is over." This isn't a policy change as such, so much as it's a redefinition of the terms of the engagement.
"The President does not describe this as a 'war on terrorism,'" said John Brennan, head of the White House homeland security office, who outlined a "new way of seeing" the fight against terrorism.
The only terminology that Mr. Brennan said the administration is using is that the U.S. is "at war with al Qaeda."
"We are at war with al Qaeda," he said. "We are at war with its violent extremist allies who seek to carry on al Qaeda's murderous agenda."
Is it a big deal? Reading the comments on the article, you'd think it was. Nowhere does it say that we're "giving up," though 95% of the comments suggest that Obama's administration is doing exactly that.
For my part, I was never comfortable with the Bush administration's idea of a "War on Terrorism" (too vague a term--"You can never fully defeat a tactic like terrorism any more than you can defeat the tactic of war itself," Mr. Brennan said.), which is "global" and likely to last far, far into the future. When the Soviet Union collapsed, out military-industrial complex at least theoretically lost its raison d'etre (though you'd never know it from military budgets), and Bush's definition of a War on Terror gave these interests precisely what they needed: a war, and one against a global, terrifying foe, and a reason for bloated military budgets far into the future: "al Qaeda" might conceivably be defeated, while "terrorism" probably can't.
"War" was probably the wrong word for most of what needed to be done. The war in Afghanistan has at least some claim to legitimacy, but the Iraq invasion doesn't. I certainly don't believe that we Americans are significantly safer because of that military action, and arguably we were weakened by the diversion of resources overseas and catalyzing terrorism. What's made us safer and where our focus probably should be are intelligence gathering coupled with small, precise operations, and good policework. And, it should be noted, we've also been safeguarded by ordinary people--many of whom are not even citizens--who stood up in defense of our country. Some time ago, I heard a writer speaking about a book he wrote, talking about the sometimes-narrow successes in the efforts to safeguard America. In one particularly striking case, a new immigrant who didn't even speak English was instrumental in foiling a terrorist plot: would-be terrorists took the man into their confidence, thinking based on their similar cultural backgrounds that he was a sympathetic ear, and the man just barely managed to make himself understood by police and homeland security in time to foil the plot. This wasn't an isolated story: quite a number of immigrants, quite a number of Muslims, have been responsible for foiling attacks against American citizens. Why? Presumably because they believe in some form of "American Dream," a society of freedom, a pluralistic society that draws strength from its diversity. Perhaps one of the best things we can do to safeguard ourselves is to live up to our ideals.