As we all know by now, George Orwell Bush has deemed that the “war on terror” be renamed the “struggle against violent extremism”, so that history will not depict him as losing a war, but engaging in a struggle.

I’m not sure it gets him where he wants to be.  After all, Mein Kampf translates to “my struggle”.  And the word “jihad” itself also translates to “struggle”. 

That aside, I wish the Bush Administration would be serious about finding actual solutions to actual problems, rather than constantly focusing on the cosmetic battles.  Let’s hope that the administration is better at actually combating terrorism than it is in coming up with new catch phrases. 

UPDATE: But let’s consider what this new buzz phrase really means:

It is a complete repudiation of roughly four years of counter-terrorism policy out of the White House.

The core of the Bush Doctrine was that the threat of terrorism is still one tied to states rather than non-state-actors. As Doug Feith said some three years ago, the reliance of terrorists on state sponsors has been the "principal strategic thought underlying our strategy in the war on terrorism."

If we take their words at face value, they’ve now abandoned that cornerstone of their strategy. Shouldn’t that prompt some questions?