[Marcus Marulus]

'War on terror' phrase unhelpful, UK tells US

Staff and agencies
Monday April 16, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


Hilary Benn, the international development secretary. Photograph: Getty.

The international development secretary, Hilary Benn, will today reinforce Britain's opposition to the phrase "war on terror", using a speech in New York to warn that it can actually strengthen insurgent groups.
Mr Benn will tell a meeting at a New York-based thinktank that the phrase, coined by the Bush administration after September 11 2001, can assist small, disparate groups with varying ideals "by letting them feel part of something bigger".
In December, the foreign office instructed cabinet ministers to stop using the phrase, and sent out advice to UK diplomats around the world that it should be avoided.
However, US President George Bush continues to use the words regularly, opening a speech last month commemorating the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by describing its current government as "an ally in the war on terror".
In his speech to the Centre on International Cooperation, Mr Benn - a declared candidate to take over from John Prescott as Labour's deputy leader - will argue that the term is misleading and counter-productive.
"In the UK, we do not use the phrase 'war on terror' because we can't win by military means alone, and because this isn't us against one organised enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives," he will say, according to a draft of his speech.
"It is the vast majority of the people in the world - of all nationalities and faiths - against a small number of loose, shifting and disparate groups who have relatively little in common apart from their identification with others who share their distorted view of the world and their idea of being part of something bigger.
"What these groups want is to force their individual and narrow values on others without dialogue, without debate, through violence. And by letting them feel part of something bigger, we give them strength."
Using "hard power" alone will not be enough to tackle terrorist groups, he will say.
"It can certainly win the battle - but without soft power, we cannot win the war that will deliver better governance, sustainable peace and lasting prosperity.
"The fight for the kind of world that most people want can, in the end, only be won in a different battle - a battle of values and ideas." The US former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of "a global struggle against violent extremism" in a series of speeches in 2005, leading to reports the Bush administration was considering abandoning the "war on terror" phrase.

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