President George Bush’s "war on terror" rhetoric has strengthened terrorist groups by helping them to create a shared identity, the development secretary, Hilary Benn, warned yesterday.The Foreign Office reportedly asked politicians and diplomats to drop the phrase last year.

The UK Guardian has the full story. I personally have always hated the term War on Terror, for the simple reason that in many peoples’ minds, once ‘war’ is declared all kinds of violence against civilians, torture and other human rights abuses somehow become more acceptable.
What’s worse is that this term is only used in the context of al-Qaeda/Islamist violence, thus vaguely identifying Muslims as terrorists. State sponsored terror such as the Russian slaughter of Chechens goes unnoticed.
Of course terrorism should be opposed. But the people writing the speeches opposing it need to be a bit more intelligent.