Democrats just want ‘global war on terror’ to go away – literally

Well, we know they want to wash their hands of the Iraq war before (presumably) a Democrat president take office, and now we learn that a House committee wants to ban the use of the phrase ‘global war on terror’ in the 2008 defense budget, and any other legislation that has anything to do with … the global war on terror. Via the Military Times (emphasis added):

The House Armed Services Committee is banishing the global war on terror from the 2008 defense budget.

This is not because the war has been won, lost or even called off, but because the committee’s Democratic leadership doesn’t like the phrase.

A memo for the committee staff, circulated March 27, says the 2008 bill and its accompanying explanatory report that will set defense policy should be specific about military operations and “avoid using colloquialisms.”

The “global war on terror” a phrase first used by President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., should not be used, according to the memo. Also banned is the phrase the “long war” which military officials began using last year as a way of acknowledging that military operations against terrorist states and organizations would not be wrapped up in a few years.

Committee staff members are told in the memo to use specific references to specific operations instead of the Bush administration’s catch phrases. The memo, written by Staff Director Erin Conaton, provides examples of acceptable phrases, such as “the war in Iraq” the “war in Afghanistan, “operations in the Horn of Africa” or “ongoing military operations throughout the world.”

“There was no political intent in doing this” said a Democratic aide who asked not to be identified. “We were just trying to avoid catch phrases.” [Riiiiight! -ed.]

Josh Holly, a spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the committee’s former chairman and now its senior Republican, said Republicans “were not consulted” about the change.

Committee aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said dropping or reducing references to the global war on terror could have many purposes, including an effort to be more precise about military operations, but also has a political element involving a disagreement over whether the war in Iraq is part of the effort to combat terrorism or is actually a distraction from fighting terrorists.

Well yeah, I mean, because we’re not fighting terrorists in Iraq or anything.

And these people are supposed to be the adults in charge of things? I think somewhere in the next budget they should allocate enough money to build a giant sandbox these juvenile, petty whiners could go play in while the remaining Congresspeople who know what’s at stake here could get on with the business of helping the US win the GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR.

In the meantime, the Influence Peddler tries to explain Senator Joe Biden’s explanation for the Democratic Iraq ‘plan’.

And here’s some good news: ABC reports that in parts of Baghdad, the surge is working.

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