Interesting Semantics

I found the attempt to rebrand the "war on terror" as the "Struggle against Violent Extremism" with that awful acronym SAVE, an interesting semantic point. All of the uses of SAVE came out of the Dept. of Defense followed by phrases, I remember joint chiefs Richard Myers, about how the "war" wording implies that miltary men in uniform were the answer, and that the solution should be recognized as a much broader joint effort across the entire government. Not bad.

But then we get this yesterday in the NYtimes.

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.

Now, what is this? Bush, quite obviously, gets a political benefit from the "war" phraseology, I'm not gonna go into that as I think it's fairly obvious, but the really curious thing about this semantic divide, is why the Dept of Defense wanted to broaden the language.

I think this is an effort by DoD to crawl out from under primary responsibility for the level of success/failure this "war" is having. I don't think this bodes particularly well for the "war" effort, which effectively means that you are at risk of terror attack.

Another possibility would be a de-emphasis of of the war imagery to aid in recruiting, but I would discount that as a primary motivation. I don't think getting soft and fuzzy for recruiting purposes would get a signature off Rumsfeld's desk.

It's all just pretty curious, something to think about over that bowl of Cheerios.

What do you think it means?