we cannot fight the whole world

[welshTerrier2]

i see lots of posts on DU calling the war on terror (WOT) a bush fantasy ... actually, i somewhat disagree ... i believe there really are Islamic fundamentalist forces, like Al Qaeda, fighting against the US ... some, realizing that bush and his regime seek to exploit fear, correctly recognize that bush just loves to hype the danger to benefit himself politically ... but that does NOT mean these forces don't exist ...

and i frequently hear Democratic politicians talking about Iraq being a "distraction" from the WOT ... in doing this, they are acknowledging that the WOT is real ... they talk about the draining of American military resources in Iraq and how that's made it much harder to truly pursue "the terrorists" ...

hear this Democrats: that is the wrong way to think about the problem !!!

to condemn the violence called for by these Islamic fundamentalists is fully justified ... we should never condone terrorism against innocent civilians ... period!!

but it is critically important to separate their methods from their motivations ... in our simplistic black and white world, this is rarely done ... and in our shallow political system that succumbs to sound bites and cheap political gimmicks, it's even harder ... let me say it again: we MUST separate our condemnation of terrorist violence from the reasons these fundamentalists have for perpetrating that violence in the first place ...

it is all too commonly accepted that if we were to even seek to discuss the motivations of the Islamic fundamentalists, we would be implicitly condoning their actions ... this is just plain WRONG!!

it is an outrage that Democrats have failed to educate the American people about the immoral excesses of American foreign policy ... bush says "the terrorists hate us for our freedoms" ... can you imagine that? his argument is that a bunch of Middle Eastern terrorists want to destroy America because we have freedom of speech or freedom of the press or a right to privacy ... some guy named Osama is sitting around and one day decides to attack the US because he doesn't like the fact that Americans have the right to criticize their own government ... truly, anyone who believes such nonsense should not be permitted to vote ... there's just no possible way to accept bush's absurd statement on what motivates "the terrorists" ... none ...

but, and i hope you really focus on this, what is the response from the Democrats? how do we, as a Party, explain the motivations of "the terrorists"? the truth is, i don't think we address the issue at all ... we prefer the safe harbor of merely criticizing the violence of the jihadists ... if we go no further than that, we are truly bankrupt ... the path to peace with Islam will not lie in tracking down and killing these people all over the world ... got that????

we cannot fight the whole world that now looks in horror at our country's global violence ... we are failing using this approach and we will continue to fail ... and the cost to the US, in terms of blood, treasure and prestige is staggering ...

Democrats have been afraid to tell the American people the truth about the WOT and I understand that ... there have been huge political risks when 9/11 was spun so effectively by the right-wing propaganda machine ... but if we as a Party don't stand up and talk about a new direction, the country, and the Party, will be destroyed ...

Is there a non-military solution to the WOT?

The good news is that of course there is ... for generations, we have supported tyrannical regimes in the Middle East ... virtually all of the motivation for doing so concerned OPEC oil ... to transition from an imperialist foreign policy to one in which the US lives cooperatively with oil producing countries and supports real democratic movements rather than the repressive regimes we currently support is THE ONLY SOLUTION TO THE WOT ... got that??? i hope so ...

And please don't be duped into thinking all this evil started with bush ... we assassinated Mossadeq, a popular, democratically elected leader in Iran way back in 1953 ... most of that resulted from his threat to nationalize the BP oil fields ... we propped up the genocidal Shah of Iran ... we propped up and sold all kinds of weapons to Saddam Hussein ... and we have not done what is necessary to promote peace between Israel in the Palestinians ... we could do much, much better if we really wanted to ... that's a discussion for a separate thread or a separate forum ...

so, do we as Democrats believe "the terrorists" have some very legitimate gripes with US foreign policy in their part of the world??? if we deny this as a Party, the WOT will never end and we will never find the path to peace ... again, we should never condone terrorism but neither should we condone the immoral actions of our own country that precipitates terrorism ... let them say "why do you hate America?" ... we know that we are trying to save our country by putting it on a better path ...

Democrats have a choice to make; so far, we've done little more than dodge the issue ...