On terrorism, Bush maligns history and our intelligence

[spindrifter]

Daily Star Lebanon
By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff
Saturday, September 02, 2006


There is something sad about a grown man playing children's make-believe war games in a tree house in grandpa's back yard - which is how President George W. Bush came across Thursday night in his speech on the importance of winning the war in Iraq in the global battle against terrorism. Rarely does a leader of a great country like the United States malign history, his people's intelligence and the dignity of over a billion Muslims in one speech, but Bush did that Thursday night and will probably keep doing it for a while.

Terrorism is no joke or game, I know, and the attacks of September 11, 2001, and subsequent ones around the world were tragic and criminal deeds. Nobody has to tell us in the Middle East about terrorism's evil, because we suffer its negative impact in two ways - as victims of terror for many decades, and also as the owners of the societies that give birth to so many terrorists.

Yet Bush's response to terror remains hobbled by three constraints: misdiagnosing the causes and aims of terror; waging a "global war on terror" that has only expanded the problem by giving terrorists new reasons to cause havoc; and exaggerating the nature and extent of the terror threat to Americans and the world primarily for domestic political purposes. The cumulative consequences of such an approach have been devastating in various ways - to Bush's own political standing at home, American credibility and clout around the world, and the continued threat of terror around the world. The shortcomings of Bush's anti-terror approach are very clear, five years after the September 11 attacks, yet he keeps promoting historically inaccurate and morally deviant approaches to the problem that only make the problem worse in many cases.

The president's speech Thursday night was most compelling for its capacity to say nothing that he has not said repeatedly in the past three years, while adding new layers of misinterpretation and diversionary chaff that he sells to the American public on the basis of emotionalism, patriotism and nostalgia. His main thesis summed up his shameful misanalysis: "The war we fight today is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century.''

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http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=75185

[ashling]

1. This is an excellent piece

Kick

[ashling]

2. This is great

I wanted to reccommend it. It is about so much more than Israel/Palestine and needs to be seen by all. Go there to recommend it, please (since I am the original poster there, I cannot recommend)

[spindrifter]

3. Go where?

I couldn't figure out where you meant.

[ashling]

5. Sorry

I put it in GD

[Lithos]

4. Good article

emotionalism, patriotism and nostalgia

Yes, and this is the reason why they use "Islamofascist" in an attempt to equate this with the last "good war" - WWII.

L-