No More ‘Global War on Terrorism’?

Both Chirol and Eddie wrote several years ago that the US should declare victory in the war on terrorism and move on. Britain ultimately took this policy choice and dropped the “bumper sticker” policy slogan. The U.S. under G.W. Bush did not.

But a policy change has come with the Obama administration, so says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

Clinton also acknowledged that administration officials have stopped calling the fight against al-Qaeda “the global war on terror,” the preferred phraseology of the Bush administration.

“The administration has stopped using the phrase and I think that speaks for itself obviously,” she said, adding that there had been no formal policy directive to do so. “It’s just not being used,” she said.

Clinton is the highest level administration official to acknowledge the shift but she did not give a reason for the change. Many Democrats have contended that the “war on terror” label was too broad, potentially enlisting the United States in a war with any militant group; the president’s new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy says it has the central aim of disrupting, dismantling and defeating al-Qaeda.