The "War on Terror" is over!!

Well, the Obama administration has done it! The "War on Terror" is officially over, according to this article in the Washington Times. So does this mean the United States is declaring victory over the Taliban, al Qaeda and radical Islamofascists? Oh no, that would be too much work. Rather, the Obama Administration has determined that the term "war on terror" is no longer acceptable terminology:

It’s official. The U.S. is no longer engaged in a “war on terrorism.” Neither is it fighting “jihadists” or in a “global war.”

President Obama’s top homeland security and counterterrorism official took all three terms off the table of acceptable words inside the White House during a speech Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

“The President does not describe this as a ‘war on terrorism,’” said John Brennan, head of the White House homeland security office, who outlined a “new way of seeing” the fight against terrorism. The only terminology that Mr. Brennan said the administration is using is that the U.S. is “at war with al Qaeda.” “We are at war with al Qaeda,” he said. “We are at war with its violent extremist allies who seek to carry on al Qaeda's murderous agenda.”

Alrighty then, so things really haven't changed, we're just going to change the way we designate things. Oh, well I can see where that is important ... I guess ... if I really think hard about it. Then again, I don't get it.

Why do we -- "we" being the United States -- care what other countries think about our terminology? Does it matter if we're conducting a "war on terror" or a "war against al Qaeda and it's violent extremist allies"? Isn't it really the same thing? Isn't is fair to say that the US, and pretty much the entire Western World, is in a battle with Islamic Jihadists? Not according to Mr. Brennan and the Obama administration:

Mr. Brennan said that to say the U.S. is fighting “jihadists” is wrongheaded because it is using “a legitimate term, ‘jihad,’ meaning to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal” which “risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve.”

Really? "Jihad" means to "purify oneself" or to "wage a holy struggle for a moral goal"? What planet is this guy from and where the hell has he been the last 30+ years? This is akin to CAIR convincing the Bush administration that jihad was really an "inner struggle" for Muslims to resist sin and strive for harmony between faith and action. In this respect, the term is very similar to the goal of Christians to be more Christ-like in their everyday activities. But who are they trying to kid? Jihad, as used and understood in the world today, is the mechanism for islamofacists to spread Islam by the point of the sword -- and its not like this is something new. Islam has been spread at the point of a sword since the time of Mohammed. There is a reason that so many terrorist organizations use the term in their name (Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Islamic Jihad Organization). There is a reason that leaders such as Osama bin Laden and Ayatollah Khomeni have called for "jihad" against the United States and other Western nations.

This is just another example of "style over substance" common among politicians these days. I guess I like it better when people tell you what they really mean instead of trying to sound politically correct. The hard truth is that the US and the rest of the Western world has been at war with violent Islamofascists since at least 1972, when the Munich Olympics were interrupted by Black September -- we just didn't realize we were in the war until that fateful September day in 2001.

If nothing has changed in our actions, there is no need to change the terminology. The Obama administration has proven that the Bush administration was doing the right thing, because nothing in the War on Terror ... er, I mean, the War with al Qaeda and Its Violent Extremist Allies ... has changed. The US is still conducting successful drone attacks, extraordinary rendition and generally taking it to the bad guys. If you're going to change the terminology, lets change it to something more honest: "The War Against Islamofascism."