Britain Drops 'War on Terror' Label

[financeguy]

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/...,00.html?wh=wh

"The words "war on terror" will no longer be used by the British government to describe attacks on the public, the country's chief prosecutor said Dec. 27.

Sir Ken Macdonald said terrorist fanatics were not soldiers fighting a war but simply members of an aimless "death cult."

The Director of Public Prosecutions said: 'We resist the language of warfare, and I think the government has moved on this. It no longer uses this sort of language."

London is not a battlefield, he said.

"The people who were murdered on July 7 were not the victims of war. The men who killed them were not soldiers," Macdonald said. "They were fantasists, narcissists, murderers and criminals and need to be responded to in that way."

His remarks signal a change in emphasis across Whitehall, where the "war on terror" language has officially been ditched. "

A welcome development, the only people who use the 'WOT/GWOT' lingo are those glued to neo-con pundits.

Anyone with a brain doesn't.

[the iron horse]

1938: On this day
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/d...00/3115476.stm

[financeguy]

Originally posted by the iron horse
1938: On this day
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/d...00/3115476.stm

"Although only one per cent of the world's population...terrorize...world opinion, and world politics."

- Nazi propaganda film, "The Eternal Jew", talking about Jews in the 1930s.



"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. "

- Ann Coulter, US neo-conservative analyst, talking about Muslims in 2001


"Many Mahdi will die, but they live to die. "

- Charles Krauthammer, neo-conservative analyst, salivating over the prospect of a US invasion of Iran in 2006

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...401413_pf.html

[the iron horse]

Originally posted by financeguy






"Although only one per cent of the world's population...terrorize...world opinion, and world politics."

- Nazi propaganda film, "The Eternal Jew", talking about Jews in the 1930s.



"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. "

- Ann Coulter, US neo-conservative analyst, talking about Muslims in 2001

Trying to understand how this relates to the link I posted on
Chamberlain and 1938.

[financeguy]

Originally posted by the iron horse
Trying to understand how this relates to the link I posted on
Chamberlain and 1938.

No, tell you what, maybe you should explain first.

Explain how the link you posted on Chamberlain and 1938 has got jackshit to do with the opening news article.

(PS. It's good that you're actually engaging in debate, for once. This is welcome.)

[the iron horse]

OK, here's my 2 cents

I think, like Chamberlain in 1938, we are failing to see, or choosing to ignore, the threats and dangers of our times.



Now ,can you explain how the Ann Coulter quote relates to this topic?


Much thanks

[phillyfan26]

Originally posted by the iron horse
I think, like Chamberlain in 1938, we are failing to see, or choosing to ignore, the threats and dangers of our times.

Who's "we?"

[U2democrat]

Just because they're dopping the label does not mean they're turning their back on the threat of terror.

The so called "War on Terror" is a war with no end, its a worthless label.

[Kieran McConville]

Actually, although he was wrong, Chamberlain wasn't ignoring the threat in his time. He was attempting to face it by other means, acutely aware that Britain was at the time a fragile, toothless tiger. His mistake was to assume Hitler was a rational adversary.

Despite his 'appeasement', the massive rearmament of Britain proceeded apace during his time in power. All those fighter planes weren't just magically there the minute Churchill assumed office.

All of this is off-topic of course, but no worse than just about everything else in the thread.

[MadelynIris]

The idea of labeling the terrorists 'criminals' as opposed to 'soldiers of a war' is an interesting twist.

Either label conveys certain rights and limitations. It's more like he doesn't want to give them the 'honor' conveyed to true soldiers -- something the terrorists most desperately declare.

[CTU2fan]

What am I missing here? Whoever labeled terrorists "soldiers" or "warriors"? I suppose if you say that the British (or US) governments are fighting a "war on terror" then by extension you're saying the terrorists are soldiers too...but to me that's a stretch.

Sounds like pointless semantics/rhetoric from people who ought to have better things to do with their time. You think anyone actually doing any fighting gives a flying fuck what you call it?

[ntalwar]

Finally. The US democrats already did that.

For years, many Democrats have seen GWOT as a catch-all cooked up by the administration to justify about any of its actions, from the Iraq War to the National Security Agency surveillance of telecommunications.

Indeed, a central point of Democrats's anti-Bush argument is that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with fighting terror, so they chafed everytime they heard Bush attempt to justify the U.S. military presence in Iraq as part of the larger war on terror.

It is a phrase so associated with Bush Administration policies detested by Democrats, small wonder House Democrats wanted it banned from the budget document. The only surprise is that it took them as long as it did.

As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told President Bush recently, there's a new Congress in town. She might have added that it brought with it new word police.

House Republicans certainly saw the Democratic move as politically influenced and will use it for partisan ends themselves, as Boehner's statement demonstrates.

http://blogs.trb.com/news/politics/b...global_wa.html

It's overly broad, was popularized by dubya, and has been used to justify Gitmo, illegal wiretaps, torture, renditions, and attacks on civilians among other atrocities.

[AchtungBono]

Originally posted by ntalwar
Finally. The US democrats already did that.


http://blogs.trb.com/news/politics/b...global_wa.html

It's overly broad, was popularized by dubya, and has been used to justify Gitmo, illegal wiretaps, torture, renditions, and attacks on civilians among other atrocities.

But those methods ARE justified against terrorists.

[CTU2fan]

Originally posted by AchtungBono


But those methods ARE justified against terrorists.

Attacks on civilians? Really? When you stoop to killing innocent bystanders and chalking it up to "collateral damage" you might as well stop fighting the terrorists, because at that point you are the terrorists.

I'd say the same for "disappearing" people at Gitmo, and torture.

[vaz02]

Glad to know the folks down at whitehall are tackling the real issues.....

[ntalwar]

Originally posted by AchtungBono


But those methods ARE justified against terrorists.

Those methods are a great recruiting tool for terrorists.

[BVS]

Originally posted by AchtungBono


But those methods ARE justified against terrorists.

So, if I label you a terrorists I can then torture you?

[MrsSpringsteen]

NY Times

December 31, 2007
Editorial
Looking at America

There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.

It was not the first time in recent years we’ve felt this horror, this sorrowful sense of estrangement, not nearly. This sort of lawless behavior has become standard practice since Sept. 11, 2001.

The country and much of the world was rightly and profoundly frightened by the single-minded hatred and ingenuity displayed by this new enemy. But there is no excuse for how President Bush and his advisers panicked — how they forgot that it is their responsibility to protect American lives and American ideals, that there really is no safety for Americans or their country when those ideals are sacrificed.

Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered America’s position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international institutions and treaties, sullied America’s global image, and trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times. These policies have fed the world’s anger and alienation and have not made any of us safer.

In the years since 9/11, we have seen American soldiers abuse, sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few have been punished, but their leaders have never been called to account. We have seen mercenaries gun down Iraqi civilians with no fear of prosecution. We have seen the president, sworn to defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant.

We have read accounts of how the government’s top lawyers huddled in secret after the attacks in New York and Washington and plotted ways to circumvent the Geneva Conventions — and both American and international law — to hold anyone the president chose indefinitely without charges or judicial review.

Those same lawyers then twisted other laws beyond recognition to allow Mr. Bush to turn intelligence agents into torturers, to force doctors to abdicate their professional oaths and responsibilities to prepare prisoners for abuse, and then to monitor the torment to make sure it didn’t go just a bit too far and actually kill them.

The White House used the fear of terrorism and the sense of national unity to ram laws through Congress that gave law-enforcement agencies far more power than they truly needed to respond to the threat — and at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could.

Hundreds of men, swept up on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, were thrown into a prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, so that the White House could claim they were beyond the reach of American laws. Prisoners are held there with no hope of real justice, only the chance to face a kangaroo court where evidence and the names of their accusers are kept secret, and where they are not permitted to talk about the abuse they have suffered at the hands of American jailers.

In other foreign lands, the C.I.A. set up secret jails where “high-value detainees” were subjected to ever more barbaric acts, including simulated drowning. These crimes were videotaped, so that “experts” could watch them, and then the videotapes were destroyed, after consultation with the White House, in the hope that Americans would never know.

The C.I.A. contracted out its inhumanity to nations with no respect for life or law, sending prisoners — some of them innocents kidnapped on street corners and in airports — to be tortured into making false confessions, or until it was clear they had nothing to say and so were let go without any apology or hope of redress.

These are not the only shocking abuses of President Bush’s two terms in office, made in the name of fighting terrorism. There is much more — so much that the next president will have a full agenda simply discovering all the wrongs that have been done and then righting them.

We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America.

[AchtungBono]

Originally posted by BonoVoxSupastar


So, if I label you a terrorists I can then torture you?

You can't label me a terrorist if I'm innocent and done nothing wrong.

On the other hand, if I'm constantly threatening your life, harming your children, bombing your house, beating you to a pulp and making your life a living hell.....you have the right to defend yourself in EVERY way possible.

[Vincent Vega]

Originally posted by AchtungBono


You can't label me a terrorist if I'm innocent and done nothing wrong.

And yet it's happening nearly on a daily basis.