Global struggle against violent extremism

The meme global struggle against violent extremism (G-SAVE) has been in use since at least May 2005 by the Department of Defense to replace Global War on Terror (GWOT). The New York Times reported July 26, 2005, that the "Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an ideological battle as a military mission," according to "senior administration and military officials." 

Return of the "War President" ... or Just Another Bush administration flip-flop
When the Bush administration's rebranding of the "war on terrorism" didn't work out quite as planned. ..


 * While on vacation in Crawford, Texas, in an August 3, 2005, speech to the American Legislative Exchange Council in Grapevine, President George W. Bush "publicly overruled some of his top advisers ... in a debate about what to call the conflict with Islamic extremists, saying, 'Make no mistake about it, we are at war.'" 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."

Dan Froomkin noted in the August 4, 2004, Washington Times that "this isn't the first time Bush or his aides have temporarily retreated from -- and then returned to -- the metaphor that has consistently been his most potent weapon in the battle for public opinion.

"Almost exactly a year ago, after one of the president's rare speeches to a not entirely friendly audience, Bush briefly went off script. Here's the transcript of the Aug. 6, 2004, event at a minority journalists' convention.

"Bush was asked to describe the mission for the U.S. troops in Iraq and to explain how they would know when they're done. Toward the end of his meandering reply, he had this to say:

"'We actually misnamed the war on terror. It ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world."

The acronym for this is SAIEWDNBIFSWHTUTAAWTTTSTCOTFW, according to Washington Post writer Dana Milbank.

Feedback
Steve Soto of The Left Coaster remarked July 27, 2005,


 * "When a majority of the public thinks that you are not winning the war on terror, as you yourself defined it in Iraq, the typical GOP thing to do is to stop calling it a war on terror and to start calling your global messianic crusade a global struggle against violent extremism. And that is what Karen Hughes will get to do now with full Democratic support. She will try and convince the world that it isn’t about the military, our penchant for shooting first and cleaning up later, nor is it about the oil. What America really wants is to wage an ongoing struggle against violent extremism."

Upon reading the Times article, Slates Fred Kaplan commented July 27, 2005:


 * "Three subquestions arise just from the lead. First, this is the administration's solution to the spike in terrorist incidents, the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan, and the politico-military deterioration in Iraq -- to retool the slogan?


 * "Second, the White House and the Pentagon are just now coming around to the idea that the struggle is as much ideological as military? This wasn't obvious, say, three or four years ago?


 * "Apparently not," Kaplan concluded, as Times' reporters Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker noted:


 * "Administration and Pentagon officials say the revamped campaign has grown out of meetings of President Bush's senior national security advisers that began in January, and it reflects the evolution in Mr. Bush's own thinking nearly four years after the Sept. 11 attacks."

Commented Helena Cobban July 27, 2005, "So for those [who] like to be 'up-to-date' with the latest conceptual tools coming out of that bastion of intellectual enlightenment, the Pentagon (major irony alert there, folks)... What, you will be asking, is the new discourse of choice?


 * "... And the winner is...


 * "The discourse of 'civilization', as presented by Rumsfeld last Friday, when he addressed an audience at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. According to that NYT report, at that event,


 * "Mr. Rumsfeld described America's efforts as it 'wages the global struggle against the enemies of freedom, the enemies of civilization.'


 * "The use of the discourse of 'civilization' to mask the true content of strategies of global domination is, sadly, as old as globe-girdling colonialism itself. The British used it in Tasmania as they exterminated the indigenous peoples there... The Germans used it in South West Africa as they did likewise... The Spanish used it in Central America as they...


 * "And now, Donald Rumsfeld."

Quotes

 * Q. How can you tell when the Bushies are getting worried?
 * A. They start changing slogans. --PM Carpenter, July 27, 2005.


 * "Out with the GWOT, in with the WAVE, the War Against Violent Extremism, except that according to this Times article about the new language, the shift isn't so much about replacing 'terrorism' with 'violent extremism,' and the deemphasis of 'global,' ... it's about the out and out removal of the word 'war,' so that now it's a 'global struggle against violent extremism.'" --Rantingprofs.com, July 26, 2005.


 * "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism ... Global SAVE, get it?! With the boy emperor as, you got it, the head SAVior." --jmgear, PR Watch, July 27, 2005.

Rebranding
General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on May 20, 2005, that "the World War II generation fought tyranny, hatred and oppression, and sacrificed much at home 'to bring hope and freedom from fear to the world.' ... He said today's generation is much the same. 'They are in the fight for freedom and an ongoing struggle against violent extremism..."

On July 25, 2005, Myers explained to the National Press Club that he had "'objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution.' [Myers] said the threat instead should be defined as violent extremists, with the recognition that 'terror is the method they use.' ... Although the military is heavily engaged in the mission now, he said, future efforts require 'all instruments of our national power, all instruments of the international communities' national power.' The solution is 'more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military,'" Myers concluded.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, in a May 25, 2005, speech, said "Today we confront an enemy unburdened by bureaucracy or regulation -- or any legal, moral or structural constraints. The enemy is not easily described.  It is not a nation, not a religion, nor even one particular organization. ... Rather it is a shifting network of violent and fanatical adherents to violent extremist ideologies -- a movement that uses terrorism as the weapon of choice. ... Terrorists can attack at any time, in any place, using any technique. But it is not possible to defend at every location, against every conceivable technique, at every moment of the day or night."

Related SourceWatch Resources

 * coalition of the willing
 * Exit Strategy from Iraq
 * homeland security
 * Operation Enduring Freedom
 * Operation Iraqi Freedom
 * Patriot Act I
 * September 11, 2001
 * The Long War
 * war in Iraq
 * war on terrorism