Quotes of the Morning: A War by Any Other Name

“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.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, August 6, 2004

“The administration's decision to drop the phrase "global war on terror" in favour of ‘global struggle against violent extremism’ appears part of a wider effort to de-emphasise military solutions and to recruit European allies to help attract moderate Muslim opinion.”
-The Guardian UK, August 3, 2005

“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.”
-New York Times, August 4, 2005

“I, for one, am happy that we kept it simple with the WoT. I mean, the GSAVE sounded like it was slapped together to get a cool acronym, and the SAIEWDNBIFSWHTUTAAWTTTSTCOTFW? Well, the less said of that the better. We’ll win this war yet, just as soon as we can figure out what the heck it is. Until then, Mr. Bush will bravely fight the War on Terra while on vacation in Texas, which, come to think of it, sounds like what he did during the Vietnam war too..”
-Skippy

“'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. 'They've a temper, some of them - particularly verbs: they're the proudest - adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs - however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'”
-Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

“Asked during the briefing ‘are we winning’ the war, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not directly respond.
‘The United States and the coalition forces, in my personal view, will not be the thing that will defeat the insurgency,’ Rumsfeld said.
‘So, therefore, winning or losing is not the issue for 'we,' in my view, in the traditional, conventional context of using the word 'winning' and 'losing' in a war. The people that are going to defeat that insurgency are going to be the Iraqis.’"
-Reuters, April 26, 2005