Words Matter: Obama Shelves Use of Bush's 'War on Terror'

March 31, 2009— -- A mere 10 weeks into the Obama presidency, the "war on terror" is over. And the nation is rid of "enemy combatants."

As President Obama said during the campaign, words matter.

Obama's first major foreign trip, which begins today in Great Britain.

Phrases like "war on terror" and "enemy combatants" became stand-ins for some of the least popular elements of the Bush administration's foreign policy. Shelving such phrases makes sense for a president who is trying to set a new tone on the world stage, said Matthew Dowd, a former Bush strategist.

"This is a way for the Obama administration to turn the page on Bush, even though some of the policies for many folks seem very much the same," said Dowd, who is now an ABC News contributor. "It's not going to be completely different than Bush, but changing the words has enabled them to turn the page and say, 'We're not Bush.' "

The clarity with which the language has changed hasn't been fully reflected in the policies the president has pursued. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the president is formulating policies that some of his liberal critics say could have been promulgated by his predecessor.

While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters matter-of-factly this week that the term "war on terror" isn't being used by the Obama administration, the president has yet to find an easy replacement.

In addition, the death of the term "enemy combatants" was announced in a legal filing earlier this month that nonetheless upheld the administration's right to detain those suspected of assisting al Qaeda.

"They're still operating within the 'war on terror' framework, and we think that's a problem," said Tom Parker, Amnesty International's policy director for terrorism, counterterrorism and human rights. "We don't at this point know who the real Obama is."