The War Is Over!
Posted on March 25th, 2009 at 11:22 am by Steve

George W. Bush, September 20, 2001:

Our war on terror will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.

E-mail from the Department of Defense’s Office of Security Review to Pentagon Staff, March 2009:

This administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror’ [GWOT.] Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.’

The Washington Post gives the story:

The memo said the direction came from the Office of Management and Budget, the executive-branch agency that reviews the public testimony of administration officials before it is delivered.

Not so, said Kenneth Baer, an OMB spokesman.

“There was no memo, no guidance,” Baer said yesterday…

Coincidentally or not, senior administration officials had been publicly using the phrase “overseas contingency operations” in a war context for roughly a month before the e-mail was sent.

I know it’s cliche, but I can’t resist including the words of that rascal Eric Blair, which he penned some 60 years ago:

Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. A large part of the political literature of five years was now completely obsolete. Reports and records of all kinds, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks, photographs—all had to be rectified at lightning speed. Although no directive was ever issued, it was known that the chiefs of the Department intended that within one week no reference to the war with Eurasia, or the alliance with Eastasia, should remain in existence anywhere.