I continue to be amazed by what congressional Republicans choose to complain about.
Democrats and Republicans are at odds on whether to use President Bush’s catchall phrase “global war on terrorism” when talking about the billions of dollars spent each year in Iraq and elsewhere.
A new internal memo by a senior Democratic staff member urged aides to drop the term from their legislative dictionaries because it was too broad. The directive quickly led to a linguistic dispute between the parties.
“The attempt by Democrats to erase the words ‘global’ and ‘terror’ from our current war is an absurd effort to deny the fact that America is battling terrorism on a global scale,” said House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. “How do Democrats expect America to fight and win a war they deny is even taking place?”
This has become quite a point of contention this week. The RNC is pushing the “story” aggressively, House Republicans are releasing hard-hitting press releases, and far-right blogs are expressing the inevitable outrage.
But there’s far less to this than meets the eye.
Erin Conaton, the Democratic staff director of the House Armed Services Committee, urged aides in a March 27 memo to “avoid using colloquialisms,” such as the “war on terrorism” or the “long war,” and not to use the term “global war on terrorism.” In preparing the annual defense authorization bill, the staff is directed to be more specific, such as referring to operations in Iraq.
Apparently, this is scandalous. Dems on the House Armed Services Committee want to recognize the distinction between broader counter-terrorism efforts and the fiasco in Iraq. But to hear Boehner & Co. tell it, Dems are denying the existence of counter-terrorism efforts. The whining and semantics debates are just so … silly.
I suppose the point of the far-right complaints is that to take terrorism seriously, one must also take the phrase “war on terror” equally seriously. To suggest there’s something wrong with the phrase is to suggest there’s something wrong with counter-terrorism measures.
Of course, if that’s true, I’m anxious to hear Boehner condemn the president and his top Pentagon leaders.
In scrapping use of the GWOT phrase, the Committee has taken action long promoted by President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers.
President Bush: “We actually misnamed the war on terror, it ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.”
Donald Rumsfeld: “I don’t think I would have called it the war on terror…. Why do I say that? Because the word ‘war’ conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War. It creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within 30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. It isn’t going to happen that way. Furthermore, it is not a ‘war on terror.’ Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and (through) a small group of clerics, impose their dark vision on all the people they can control. So ‘war on terror’ is a problem for me.”
Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers: “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.'”
Does Boehner not remember this, or does he just not care? Does he not realize that his drive to score a cheap hit will end up making him look more foolish in the end, or does he just expect everyone to be as dumb as he thinks we are? Does he not realize that one cannot exactly wage war against a tactic, and that the “war on terror” has always been a metaphor, or is he just this confused?
The moment Boehner says, “How do administration officials, including the president, expect America to fight and win a war they deny is even taking place?” I’ll start taking him seriously. Until then, all this whining is sadly misguided.