I can think of at least two things wrong with the use of the phrase "Global War on Terrorism" in a defense authorization bill:

1) Authorizing this Administration to fight a "Global War" is analogous to authorizing Michael Jackson to run a day care center (the Globe), let alone to babysit two children (Iraq and Afghanistan).

2) Authorizing this Administration to fight a "Global War" against a tactic, "Terrorism," is analogous to authorizing Michael Jackson to run a day care center with carte blanche to do as he will with the children as long as he says he believes they have misbehaved.

But as pedantic as all this sounds, there's more to what Representative Skelton and his Democrat compatriots are up to here. Authorizing, even if only by inference, a "Global War on Terrorism," is de facto declaring war on the entire world. Even Hitler didn't do that. "Terrorism," and by default "terrorists," is a ubiquitous presence throughout the "Globe." I would confidently assume that every nation on Earth has "terrorists" committing "terrorism" every day. To the victim, "terrorism" is "terrifying," regardless of how many victims there are. So, from small acts of "terror" to massive assaults, "terrorism" is a worldwide fact of life. For any one entity, or nation, to fight "terrorism" "globally" is both impossibly arduous and unacceptably presumptuous. It is for each nation, each peoples, each authority to deal with "terrorism." Sure, we can work together, even "globally," to prevent "terrorism" and prosecute "terrorists" - that's called DIPLOMACY, not "war."

And "terrorism," is too broad a term to be declaring war upon it. For example, per American law, if you were to call someone on the telephone and tell them that you are going to punch them in the face, you have commited an act of terror. A warrant could be issued for your arrest for "terrorizing" the receiver of that call. And "terrorism" is in the eye, or at least the rhetoric, of the beholder. In 2002, Chinese authorities made an active effort to portray the practitioners of Falun Gong, a Buddhist sect that concentrates on "better health and inner peace," as terrorists. Somehow I think the American people are not up for shipping Chinese housewives to Guantanamo for performing slow-motion exercizes in the park.

All this aside, words have meaning, and words in legislation have meaning in law. The Bush Administration has shown itself to be irresponsible, inept and callous in it's application of the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq. It has shown itself irresponsible, inept and callous in it's handling of Afghanistan. It has made thinly veiled threats against Iran. The Constitutional authority to declare war and maintain the military rests squarely on the Legislature - not the Executive. This Executive, in particular, has shown a propensity to circumnavigate circumlocutous law, be it through piddling "signing statements" or catastrophic foreign policy. Ike Skelton and the Democrats on the House Armed Services Committe are not playing semantic games - they are legislating responsibly. It's about time and it's been a long time coming.

JMJ

I sense a Kool Aid drinker among us that has about as much understanding of radical Islamic terrorism and the global threat to Western interests as "Michael Jackson" has of astro physics.

"Terrorism" is in the eye of the beholder? Good lord, have we a case of relativistic rationalism gone a bit too far, mixed with an acute case of BDS?

Our friend JMJ needs to get back on his meds.

The absurd rationale of this Jersey Mc Jones is so patently preposterous, that I really don't know where to start...that is, after I stop gagging from laughing so hard at so much asinine pompous pedantry all in one place!

To begin with the only reason that "Democrat law makers want to struck the term "War on Terror" from the budget, is for purely political posturing, since the "War on Terror" has almost become synonymous with President Bush and the West's fight against Islamofacist (another word struck from the "Dhimmicratic" vocabulary since it offends terrorist
"sensitivities") terrorists, and still remains Bush's strongest point on which a good portion of Americans still support the President; a no no for the Dems. So, why not just make the "War on Terror" simply disappear with the stroke of a pen, pretend it doesn't exist, and go back to the good 'ole Clintonian days of having N.Y. cops and Interpol chasing after terrorists around the world like "Keystone Cops." Of course, as is to be expected, Mc Jones is of the same persuasion that "terrorism" is but a law enforcement matter, and I'm sure a firm believer in that after 9/11 all we should have done is to have a couple of FBI agents simply waltz into Al Qaeda's camp in Afghanistan with a warrant and arrest Bin Laden, and that was that. Right?

But being myself propense to wordiness, let me see how best cut through all the pedantry and get to the points.

First of all calling the war against Islamofacists and radical Islamists, who habitually employ on a daily basis acts of terror as their weapon of choice, the "War on Terror" is not only grammatically correct, but very apropos, since we are fighting here an enemy and an ideology that is not bound by geography or national boundaries, but that indeed is spread globally and permeates many niches in the world community, so yes, it is indeed a "Global War on Terror."

How asinine is it to say that by declaring war on those who profess this Islamofacist hateful twisted ideology of terror - which transcends race, color, ethnicity, nationality, and frontiers, that knows no such boundaries, and that are impelled by said ideology to commit such barbarous acts of atrocity as we have seen committed in London, Madrid, Bali, Israel, and that unfold daily in Iraq - we are in fact declaring war on the world? And what has Hitler to do with it all? The only thing I can think of that would tie Hitler to the present War on Terror, and which amply validates the use of the term Islamofacist is that the earliest anti-Zionist advocates waging this current Jihad, such as the Grand Mufti, were Arab nationalist Fascists that were not only allied ideologically with Hitler and Mussolini, but were active allies of the Third Reich and supported by the Nazis in their war against the Jewish settlers in Palestine. The Grand Mufti himself, exiled at the time in Berlin, and supported financially by Hitler and the Nazis, had a hand in the implementation of the "Final Solution" of the Germans against the Jews they both so vehemently hated, and a battalion of the Mufti's Islamofacist Arab volunteers, "Das Arabcorps," were amongst the Nazi troops that fought to the bitter end when the Allies entered Berlin.

The infantile comparison to Michael Jackson in charge of a Day Care Center, and or baby sitting Iraq and Afghanistan is undoubtedly a stab at President Bush, whom the commenter obviously feels is a warmonger for having gone head-on after the terrorists militarily instead of having sent the two FBI agents with the warrant a la Clinton as described above.

We are not talking here about such PBS melodramas as misbehaving children in the hands of a pedophile, but dealing with determined fanatics, who have no respect for life whatsoever, who eagerly line up to volunteer to blow themselves up in order to kill innocent bystanders, strangers they do not even know, who plowed two airplanes full of people into the Twin Towers, and one into the Pentagon, and would have undoubtedly plowed another one into the White House or the Capitol had the heroic passengers of Flight 93 not fought back, and here is this asshole worried about checks and balances?!?! I wonder what checks and balances were there for all those who died on 9/11!

Of course, since as he claims "terrorism is a fact of life" and "terrorism is too broad a term to declare war on," we should all sigh, shrug our shoulders, accept the horrible fatalities of such heinous acts as the attacks of 9/11, and simply go on with our secularist lives, while, again, we promptly dispatch a couple of FBI agents to the terrorist's hideout with an arrest warrant, being that it is but a law enforcement matter. As to what in the hell American law, threatening to punch someone in the face over the phone, and the "better health and inner peace" of practicing Falun Gong Buddhists has to do with terrorism I can not even remotely begin to extrapolate as I did with the commenter bringing up Hitler before. It is totally wacko!

I do have to agree with this Mc Jones loon that words do have meaning, that is why instead of commenting on the typical left-wing Democrat rant with which he ends his loopy comment, a semblance of which we all hear day in and day out coming from the paranoiac, unhinged, far- left, Democrat loons, I will posit that it is time that we stop all this nonsense, and go back to calling an apple an "apple," and a Democrat traitor wishing us to be defeated and humiliated in Iraq, and aiding and abetting the Islamofacist terrorists, a "TRAITOR" and not keep fancying them as "Patriotic Dissenters." Patriots indeed

A Rose by any other name... In like manner we are in a "War on Terror," it is global, and no matter how much the Democrats may struck the term from their legislation, from their dictionaries, even if they outlaw it, and hide their yellow streaked heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist, we will still be fighting it, and it will come after us. Verily, when we stop fighting the Islamofacists in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will wind up having to fight them, emboldened, in our very own streets! Idiot!

Althor