From The L.A. Times:
By dropping the controversial phrase, the U.S. may be redefining the contest with radical Islam.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton let slip last week that the Obama administration has finally abandoned the phrase "war on terror." Its absence had been noted by commentators. There was no directive, Clinton said, "it's just not being used."
It may seem a trivial thing, but the change in rhetoric marks a significant turning point in the ideological contest with radical Islam. That is because the war on terror has always been a conflict more rhetorical than real. There is, of course, a very real, very bloody military component in the struggle against extremist forces in the Muslim world, though one can argue whether the U.S. and allied engagements in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond are an integral part of that struggle, a distraction from it or, worse, evidence of its subversion and failure. But to the extent that the war on terror has been posited, from the start, as a war of ideology -- a clash of civilizations -- it is a rhetorical war, one fought more constructively with words and ideas than with guns and bombs.
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My Comment: I prefer calling it the War on Islamic terror ..... but that is just me.
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