Debate Magazine
After he was first elected President Obama fled from the concept of a struggle against Islamic terrorism as if fighting jihadis... were equivalent to warring against all Muslims. Orwellian language flowed. The war on terror became "overseas contingency operations." When tiptoeing through language after the Boston bombings, the administration at first declined to use the word "terror," "What has this excruciating torture of the language and elaborate "rebranding" achieved?" asks Mona Charen. "The U.S. is not safer. Terror attacks have been attempted at the same rate as during the Bush years. As for U.S. standing in the Muslim world, the Guardian reports that a 2011 poll found approval ratings for the U.S. have plummeted. "In most countries they are lower than at the end of the Bush administration, and lower than Iran's favorable ratings." A 2012 Pew poll of six predominantly Muslim nations — Turkey, Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan — found U.S. approval ratings below those during the Bush Administration. Read it all.