In the better-late-than-never department, use of the phrase “War on Terror” is now getting a little scrutiny. Not much, perhaps, but some. It’s about time for such a development and editors and reporters should encourage it. They should, for one thing, ask national leaders what they mean when they say “war on terror” or “global war on terror.” And then examine whether there’s any relationship between the definitions and U.S. foreign policy.

As Dan Froomkin notes elsewhere on this Web site, while the phrase has been nurtured and exploited by President Bush and some supporters, there’s no rule that news organizations have to sound the mantra. For precedent, Froomkin cites NBC’s decision to start calling the conflict in Iraq a civil war. Network leaders did that on their own because it made sense. Their independent move drew criticism initially but resulted in a clearer view of events, and other news organizations followed suit.

About a month ago, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to Jimmy Carter, wrote in a Washington Post op ed that the phrase “War on Terror” has helped created a “culture of fear” in America. He said “the damage these three words have done…is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.” The fear, Brzezinski wrote, “is the result of five years of almost continuous national brainwashing on the subject of terror.”

As far as I can tell, “war on terror” has no meaning – it’s an empty expression. But it’s one that politicians who agree with Brzezinski just haven’t coped with yet. Someone could spend an hour saying what’s wrong with the phrase and then be tarred as soft on terrorists, the 21st Century equivalent of being soft on communism. Brzezinski, not a politician and not afraid to say what’s on his mind, put that kind of concern aside.

Aware that the U.S. could be hit by a new 9/11 – which war-on-terror fearmongers hold over the nation’s head – Brzezinski nevertheless asks for stout-heartedness. In his conclusion, he pleads: “Where is the U.S. leader ready to say, ‘Enough of this hysteria, stop this paranoia’?… Let us be true to our traditions.”

Last weekend, there was another salutary development, also on the op ed pages of the Washington Post, as Michael Chertoff weighed in with an innuendo-laden attack on Brzezinski. By trying to take down Brzezinski in such a prominent place, Chertoff – and the Post as host to his piece – brought more welcome attention to the issue.

Chertoff is secretary of homeland security. (A little digression here: Why did they call it ‘homeland security?’ Homeland security, as the writer Peggy Noonan once pointed out, “grates on a lot of people… It has a vaguely Teutonic ring–Ve must help ze Fuehrer protect ze Homeland!”)

Chertoff said Brzezinski doesn’t want the U.S. government to be tough in protecting Americans from terrorism. I must have missed that part. In a deft touch – not very different from how some have linked Iraq to Al Qaeda – the security chief implied that Brzezinski is the mainstream version of fringe groups who say U.S. officials were behind the attacks of 9/11. And he said what Brzezinski advocates is “eerily reminiscent” of the U.S. approach leading up to Iran’s taking of American hostages in 1979. Meaning, I gather, that Brzezinski’s views on fear in America in 2007 should be disregarded because Iran took Americans hostage when Jimmy Carter was president.

Why Chertoff wrote this put-down isn’t clear to me. Possibly it was to stop the attack on the “War on Terror” phrase before discussion really gets going. Possibly the piece came about because an editor felt a need for views opposed to Brzezinski’s. Whatever the reason, the Post did a good thing in giving precious op-ed space to an important argument. Who’s next?