[Washington Times] Jon Ward - The U.S. is no longer engaged in a "war on terrorism." Neither is it fighting "jihadists" nor locked in a "global war." It is now solely a "war with al-Qaeda" and its violent extremist allies, John Brennan, head of the White House homeland security office, said Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. To say the U.S. is fighting "jihadists" is wrongheaded, Brennan said, because it is using "a legitimate term, 'jihad,' meaning to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal," which "risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve." "Worse, it risks reinforcing the idea that the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself." As for the "war on terrorism," Brennan said, the administration will not use the phrase "because terrorism is but a tactic - a means to an end, which in al-Qaeda's case is global domination by an Islamic caliphate."
2009-08-07 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive