IT'S A WAR

GRAPEVINE, Tex., Aug. 3 -- President Bush publicly overruled some of his top advisers on Wednesday in a debate about what to call the conflict with Islamic extremists, saying, "Make no mistake about it, we are at war."

In a speech here, Mr. Bush used the phrase "war on terror" no less than five times. Not once did he refer to the "global struggle against violent extremism," the wording consciously adopted by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other officials in recent weeks after internal deliberations about the best way to communicate how the United States views the challenge it is facing.

In recent public appearances, Mr. Rumsfeld and senior military officers have avoided formulations using the word "war," and some of Mr. Bush's top advisers have suggested that the administration wanted to jettison what had been its semiofficial wording of choice, "the global war on terror."

...But administration officials became concerned when some news reports linked the change in language to signals of a shift in policy. At the same time, Mr. Bush, by some accounts, told aides that he was not happy with the new phrasing, a change of tone from the wording he had consistently used since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

..."We're at war with an enemy that attacked us on September the 11th, 2001," Mr. Bush said in his address here, to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of state legislators. "We're at war against an enemy that, since that day, has continued to kill."

..."Make no mistake about it, this is a war against people who profess an ideology, and they use terror as a means to achieve their objectives," he said.


Last week, when I heard that the administration was shifting away from using the "war on terror" terminology, I thought it was a serious misstep. It seemed to me that softening the phrasing would undermine the aim of the mission--to defeat the barbarism of the Islamic fundamentalists. They are the enemy and we are at war.

Without question, this war is different than past conflicts. It is untraditional in many senses--no uniformed armies or set borders. The enemy is often indistinguishable from the innocent until a bomb explodes.

However, just because this fight is untraditional does not mean it is not a war.

When radical Islamic fundamentalists carried out their plot to kill our people and damage our economy, it was an act of war. It wasn't a crime. It was an attack on the United States. In a few hours on that September morning, they slaughtered three thousand innocent people. They hoped the death toll would have been much higher.

I see no reason whatsoever to shy away from being clear about the nature of the fight.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Americans knew that war was inevitable. The country was attacked. Japan had declared war on the U.S. and that demanded a firm response. There was no mincing of words. The "greatest generation" didn't shirk their responsibilities. They paid with their lives to ensure that our way of life would not be threatened by any foreign power.

Similarly, the 9/11 attacks drew us into a war. They brought the war to us. As it should be, we have responded to their jihad with force and resolve.

Look at the horrible loss of nineteen Marines from an Ohio battalion if you need to be reminded that this is a war.

The power of words should not be underestimated. It's crucial that we not shy away from speaking about the conflict in very clear terms.

I think refusing to refer to the war as a war is an affront to the men and women who are fighting for us, some paying with their lives to defeat our enemies and protect our freedom. It's wrong to play with words like that. Their bravery and their sacrifice should not be diminished by euphemisms.

How can we hope to successfully battle the savagery of the terrorists if we are too afraid to call the effort a war?