Goodbye Bumper Sticker Slogan

Britain officially drops “War on Terror” rhetoric.

Brown, it seems, has concluded that the war rhetoric employed by Blair was divisive, threatening social peace between communities in Britain, and counterproductive, making it harder to turn the British Muslim community into the security services’ eyes and ears. In other words, the Brown approach would be the approach of serious crime fighters around the world these days – community policing in which mutual trust is the cornerstone of crime prevention. In general, advocates of this approach avoid the rhetoric of war on the presumption that it only alienates the communities out of which criminals spring.

Britain takes the first step in redefining the battle instead of letting it be defined for us. A law enforcement perspective is far more credible and marketable than a military one, at least to the rest of the world. The question is whether Americans are ready for the change. As noted previously, it is time to declare victory in the WoT and move on. The threats won’t end and the men and women of our intelligence agencies, military and law enforcement will continue to work hard to protect Americans. But there are larger threats looming on the horizon and it’s time end our obsession with Islamic terrorism.