To show you just how prescient I am, and to once again illustrate just how I know these people. As I said yesterday, ‘I know liberals like every square inch of my glorious, rapidly shrinking nevertheless, body, not just the back of my hand.’ From the Army Times: ‘The House Armed Services Committee is banishing the global war on terror from the 2008 defense budget. This is not because the war has been won, lost or even called off, but because the committee’s Democratic leadership doesn’t like the phrase. A memo for the committee staff, circulated March 27, says the 2008 bill and its accompanying explanatory report that will set defense policy should be specific about military operations and ‘avoid using colloquialisms.’ The ‘global war on terror,’ a phrase first used by President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., should not be used, according to the memo. Also banned is the phrase the ‘long war,’ which military officials began using last year as a way of acknowledging that military operations against terrorist states and organizations would not be wrapped up in a few years.
‘Committee staff members are told in the memo to use specific references to specific operations instead of the Bush administration’s catchphrases. The memo, written by Staff Director Erin Conaton, provides examples of acceptable phrases, such as ‘the war in Iraq,’ the ‘war in Afghanistan,’ ‘operations in the Horn of Africa’ or ‘ongoing military operations throughout the world.’ ‘There was no political intent in doing this,’ said a Democratic aide who asked not to be identified. ‘We were just trying to avoid catchphrases.’ Josh Holly, a spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the committee’s former chairman and now its senior Republican, said Republicans ‘were not consulted’ about the change….’ Ike Skelton, from my home state of Missouri, a Democrat and chairman of the committee, had a staffer draw up a little memo instructing staffers and members that references to the ‘war on terror’ should be eliminated from the 2008 defense budget.
It seems the Democrats do not like the phrase. Skelton ‘has been among those who have complained that having the military tied up with Iraq operations has reduced its capacity to respond to’ take on expanded operations. But this is a war that can’t be named. There is no ‘war on terror,’ and they’re telling us this isn’t political? They’re telling us, ‘Oh, no, no, no! We’re doing this trying to avoid all this confusion.’ So as far as the Democrats are concerned, the lingo in the defense budget 2008, which goes into effect October 1, the fiscal year here ends September 30th. So we’re talking about the defense budget authorization for next year beginning in October, no war on terror, folks. Now, of course, this isn’t political. No, no! This is designed to get a lot of play and to convince as many Americans as possible that everything we’re doing in the war on terror is just not necessary because there isn’t one, and that is the specific intent.