Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Last week I blogged a story about how Rumsfeld and others wanted to change the War on Terror (or Global War on Terror) to the "global struggle against extremism--and other forms of impolite behavior."

Okay, I added that last little bit.

Anyway, I freaked a bit inside and called my publisher Neil Nyren at Putnam, saying, maybe we should change all my "global war on terrorism's" (yes, I like the more precise word terrorism vice terror, otherwise you wage war against my five-year-old every time he wakes up and loses it at 3am).

Anyway again, Neil says a bit late to change and why do it? Maybe they'll change it back the following week for all we know.

Well, President Bush does just that . . .

President Makes It Clear: Phrase Is 'War on Terror' By RICHARD W. STEVENSON Published: August 4, 2005 New York Times

GRAPEVINE, Tex., Aug. 3 - President Bush publicly overruled some of his top advisers on Wednesday in a debate about what to call the conflict with Islamic extremists, saying, "Make no mistake about it, we are at war."

In a speech here, Mr. Bush used the phrase "war on terror" no less than five times. Not once did he refer to the "global struggle against violent extremism," the wording consciously adopted by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other officials in recent weeks after internal deliberations about the best way to communicate how the United States views the challenge it is facing.

In recent public appearances, Mr. Rumsfeld and senior military officers have avoided formulations using the word "war," and some of Mr. Bush's top advisers have suggested that the administration wanted to jettison what had been its semiofficial wording of choice, "the global war on terror."

In an interview last week about the new wording, Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, said that the conflict was "more than just a military war on terror" and that the United States needed to counter "the gloomy vision" of the extremists and "offer a positive alternative."

But administration officials became concerned when some news reports linked the change in language to signals of a shift in policy . . .

Full story found at: www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/politics/04bush.html

I salute Neil's fortitude.