War on Terry

British intelligence officers’ mocking version of President George W. Bush’s “war on terror.”

Commenting in The Independent on the publication of an official history of the British security service MI5, Kim Sengupta and Cahal Milmo revealed:

In his book, “The Defence Of The Realm,” Dr [Christopher] Andrew stated that there had been scepticism within MI5 about George W Bush’s call for a “War on Terror.” An in-house review lampooned it as “The War on Terry (WOT).” And the then-chief, Sir Stephen Lander, had to reassure his staff that although a military response was being considered, “You should be reassured that that political, humanitarian, intelligence and law enforcement responses are also high on the UK agenda.”

[Perplexed readers outside Britain might like to know that there is no subtle subtext to "Terry" – it is simply a common or garden name – like Dave.] | Update: The co-vocabularist Tom Marshall added a comment, below, suggesting that “Terry” might in fact be an allusion to the military nickname “Terry Taliban.”]