Monday, February 21, 2005
A Five-Sided Meme
As described in earlier posts (12/23/04 and 1/12/05), I've been tracking the spread of the meme "war on extremism" (and related variations) as a replacement for "war on terror". The trend appears to have started with Donald Rumsfeld and expanded slowly to other DOD officials, but so far it appears to be confined within the Pentagon. The latest infectee is Pentagon spokesperson Larry DiRita:
The manner in which the national security capabilities are organized to address the global war on extremism will continue to dominate our ongoing activities,” said Larry DiRita, Pentagon spokesman.By the way, this quote comes from an article in the Financial Times titled "US signals hard line on China military threat", describing the growing concern in the US military establishment over the threat from Chinese military expansion. It's a good, worthwhile read.
