A Guess

MSM commentators have recently reported that the Pentagon has been leaning away from "war" as the word describing the American global "war" against Islamists. They don't like the word anymore, supposedly. And some comments are to the effect "Ah Ha! The Pentagon is bailing out! They walking away from Bush's "war".

Let's assume Rumsfeld did, in fact, agreed to try to re-label the war. The question is why? And what can this foretell?

I don't subscribe to the cynical translation that the Pentagon is bailing out. But I do believe that Rumsfeld, who's constituency is the Military, has a reason for using different language than Bush, who's constituency is the average voter.

Rumsfeld has people all over the world working against Islamists. But only in two countries are we killing people. Maybe three if we include Pakistan. That's not a global "war" by historical standards. That's a hot war in the southwest Asia theatre, and a cold war everywhere else. It's a little bit of soft thinking to call this global effort, which is a combination of force and diplomacy, a "war".

But "war" is what the average voter can identify with, so that's what Bush's political advisors insist on. So "war" it is.