War on Something or Other

How are we supposed to fight an enemy bent on our destruction when we can't even figure out what to call the war itself?

U.S., British officials drop 'war on terror'

British bureaucrats and U.S. lawmakers are abandoning the phrases "war on terror" and "long war" as the Bush administration redefines the battle against al Qaeda as a global war of ideology against a network of terrorists.

"I recognize that using the term 'war' with respect to the struggle we're engaged in makes some people uncomfortable," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told students during a speech Thursday at Johns Hopkins University.

"We have to recognize we are fighting members of a movement and an ideology that seeks to advance a totalitarian world vision around the globe," he said. "And if we don't understand that and contend in the field of ideology, we cannot really match this enemy across the entire spectrum of the challenge."

The change in rhetoric began in March, when the Pentagon quietly ditched the phrase "long war." Last month, Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee decreed they would no longer use the phrases "war on terror" and "long war."

Obviously, the Democrats owuld prefer to capitulate and surrender if it means gaining even one House or Senate seat. But the administration and Chertoff need to show some stones and call it what it is: A war against Islamofascism.