‘Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.” That was Pres. Barack Obama’s inaugural proclamation to the throng assembled on the National Mall, and to the additional millions huddled around televisions throughout the world. As it turns out, that’s not exactly his position.

Behind the scenes, the Pentagon has received orders from on high — which, in this administration, is the Office of Management and Budget — that war is out. The word “war,” that is. “This administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror,’” according to the guidelines, which were first reported in the Washington Post. Our warriors were curtly told, “Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.’”

That this “overseas contingency” on which we are “operating” has left a rather large hole in the ground in lower Manhattan apparently is beside the point. Or maybe that’s exactly the point. War is a powerful word, redolent of power, force, zeal, and national purpose. That’s precisely why the Left routinely invokes war in its beloved campaigns against poverty, obesity, and other abstractions. But real wars, the forcible defense of our nation and the pursuit of our interests, are to be avoided. As are real enemies. Thus, the complementary announcement that “enemy combatants” aren’t enemy combatants anymore. They are simply “individuals currently detained at Guantanamo Bay,” according to an affirmation filed in federal court by Attorney General Eric Holder.

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This risks some confusion of jihadists with Cuban refugees. During the Clinton administration, in which Holder served as deputy attorney general, those apprehended while seeking to escape Communist tyranny also became known as “individuals currently detained at Guantanamo Bay” — a policy aggressively defended by the Justice Department at the time, without much harrumphing from the leftists who scathed George W. Bush’s purported Gitmo gulag. Perhaps that’s why Holder occasionally opts for “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations” — more precise, not quite as catchy.

It remains an “armed conflict” for now — but not for long. In Iraq, the “contingency” has been over for about a year. We won and al-Qaeda was routed, and that’s why you haven’t heard about it. During an election, it’s inconvenient for the media if our nation wins a war that their chosen candidate has declared a dismal failure. But that inconvenience can be addressed with a little linguistic massaging.

Ratcheting down the “armed conflict” in Afghanistan is a bit trickier. The Obama Left considered Afghanistan the “good war” — not because they actually thought it was good, but because doing so bolstered their case that Iraq was the “bad,” “immoral,” “illegal” “war of choice” that “Bush lied us into.” With Iraq won, Afghanistan goes back to being a regular old war again, one without any rhetorical use. And not only are we losing a war, it’s not even the noble battle against trans-fats. So the war in Afghanistan must be gradually downshifted to the Left’s pre-Iraq take on it: the “improvident” “quagmire” that “really solves nothing” and has only (as Obama said of the Bush approach) “given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, ‘Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.’”

Degrading Afghanistan from a “war” to an “overseas contingency operation” is the start of this transformation. Obama’s budget will do much of the rest. Despite at least tripling government borrowing and spending (which Obama nonetheless described during Tuesday night’s press conference as “moving [away] from an era of borrow and spend”), the administration allocates only $50 billion for Afghanistan and Iraq combined — a total that won’t be enough to withdraw, as planned, from Iraq, much less conduct “operations” in the ongoing “contingency” in Afghanistan.

No matter. You can’t have a “contingency” without “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.” We’re getting rid of ours. The Obama plan calls for closing Gitmo by 2011, even if that requires releasing all the “individuals currently detained at Guantanamo Bay” to countries where they will be free to go back to the “contingency” (the Arabic word for which is jihad).