Posted on 09/04/2006 1:34:55 PM PDT by Dallas59
Bush's Terror Analysis: Erroneous and Exaggerated
George Bush's latest "terrorism" speech on August 31, showed gross misperceptions of terrorism, its causes, exaggerations of its threats, and he continued to demonize Islam -- and all probably staged for reasons of domestic electoral politics, says Rami G. Khouri.
BEIRUT -- 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 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: The September 11, 2001, and subsequent attacks 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, the United States' credibility and clout around he 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 attack, 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 new -- that he has not said repeatedly in the past three years -- while adding new layers of misinterpretation and diversionary confusion that he sells to the American public on the basis of emotionalism, patriotism and nostalgia. His main thesis sums 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.''
Really? The decisive ideological struggle of the 21st Century is launched by a small band of criminal deviants like Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri from caves in Afghanistan, who play on the lost minds and restless psyches of young mainly Arab and Pakistani men already angered by conditions in their societies? The terror problem is one that some good quality American high school guidance counselors could probably diagnose accurately, if given a chance to do so without the distorting dictates of domestic politics.
I can think of a lot more credible candidates for this century's decisive ideological struggle, including fighting poverty, expanding equitable global trading patterns, promoting good governance and the rule of law around the world, giving ordinary people everywhere a sense of being treated with dignity and justice, safeguarding the global environment, and a few others.
Bush is wrong about the real threat from terror and has been wrong since he first had to deal with the impact of September 11: It is neither a global ideological movement, nor does it plan to take the battle to the streets of Peoria and Memphis. His idea that different sorts of Islamic extremism and militancy form "a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology'' is also a gross exaggeration and simplification, but one that fits comfortably into the neo-conservative-driven Republican White House view of the world (and their electoral imperative in the United States).
Bush also does a disservice to the world and insults his own people's intelligence by mixing together into one ideological movement what is in reality a range of very different movements, inspired by different local and global causes. By linking Iraq, the recent Israel-Hizbullah war, Iran's nuclear ambitions, and Syrian policies as elements in a single threat that must be fought by America's freedom agenda, he generates a common threat that does not exist as a single, coordinated adversary. This is one reason why Bush is having such a hard time with his foreign policies achieving any goals in the Middle East, or reducing the threat of terror attacks.
He also perpetuates his misreading of the problem with his continuous insult to over a billion Muslims around the world by glibly and repeatedly speaking of Islam, fascism and terror in the same breath. This constant demonizing of an entire religion that promotes piety, peace and justice as its core values is only creating conditions that generate new terrorists among the ranks of wayward and fearful young men living in Arab-Asian societies -- young men whose distorted and freak politics are due, in many cases, to the impact of decades of American policies.
George W. Bush is responding to the terror of what started as a small band of miscreants with a shameful form of intellectual terror that has empowered them to recruit and expand. It is tragically sad when a man who should know better behaves like an adolescent and fights make-believe enemies in tree-house environments.
how about if we just call them : THE ENEMY ! ???
Rami Khouri, go back to your tent. This is America, we don't care what you say.
This crivel coming from the heartland of the radical Muzzie pighumpers.
Drivel.
Correct............the right term is ISLAM-O-FASCISTS!!!!
"THE ENEMY ! ???"
can't do that. I remember, early during the Afghan and Iraq war, the media ofthen used the word enemy in their articles, but before long the dropped it and use political correct terms e.g insurgents or militants or freedom fighters. Why? The media no longer view these people we're fighting against as the enemy. US is the enemy.
The name fits... cause' it's pi$$in' the hell outta' them!
This guy has been spending too much time on DU. He really has a keen sense for missing the obvious. What do all these disparate conflicts have in common? Muslims!
Yeah right. Kids are brainwashed by their governments from day 1 to hate Jews and any westerner who supports them. State run schools are nothing but breeding grounds for terrorists long before Bush was even in office.
And here we thought that whassisname from Al Queda and his American Islamist shill said on his last TV show that Americans must submit to worldwide Islamic rule.
Silly us.
The problem is islam, and the entire world of islam gives money for murder, and then whines and blames others.
Either the DNC has been stealing talking points from the MuzziesFirst or there is a big connection between the enemies of the US.
Sounds like he lifted this directly from the Senate diatribes of little chucky schumer. Just heard chucky on fox news yesterday and he sounded just like this guy.
Terrorist
Communist
Democrat
All working together these days.
A small band of miscreants? Let's go back to the early 60s when the PLO was an organization that sprouted and grew mostly as a result of Soviet training, funding, and support. Then grew with the same support into an international organization supporting communist "people's revolutions" around the world. Then trained and funded other middle eastern, South American, and European terrorist organizations, until today the entirety is a worldwide cancer of people whose goal is anarchy they can profit by and thrive in. Some small band. Heck, let's just ignore it.
Rather than a gross exaggeration, the quotation cited above is perfectly accurate. Ask any Wahabbist.
This constant demonizing of an entire religion
On the contrary, Bush has gone out of his way not to demonize an entire religion. He has praised Islam on many occasions as a great religion, but has specifically mentioned the Islamist Fascists as a subset of Islam, a subset which seeks to impose its will by means of terror, and a subset with which we are at war.
Over the past five or six years, I have noticed in Northern Thailand, the transformation of a very tiny Muslim minority from insular but peaceful communities to hostile enclaves of haters. They exhibit hatred and disdain both for the "Idolaters" (the Buddhist 97% of the population in the North) and for the Faranges (European / American Tourists / residents. This transformation has come in no small measure from the funding of the country's Islamic schools by Saudis and the success of terrorists in the larger world and in Southern Thailand.
It is very chilling and supports Bush, not the Chomskys and Fisks of the world.
lol
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