Bush's Alarmism Gives Islamic Rebels What They Most Want

IHT - International Herald Tribune ^ | FR Post 02-02-02 | William Pfaff

[vannrox]

Bush's Alarmism Gives Islamic Rebels What They Most Want

William Pfaff

International Herald Tribune

PARIS The United States has its work cut out for it, if President George W. Bush's State of the Union assurances concerning the war on terrorism are to be believed.


. Iran, Iraq and North Korea, the "axis of evil," are either to have their governments replaced or be deprived of their ability to construct weapons of mass destruction. (White House officials add that there are no immediate plans for military action.)


. The surviving Al Qaeda camps "in at least a dozen countries" are to be destroyed, and "tens of thousands" of potential terrorists neutralized. By implication, other Islamic fundamentalist groups that have been in contact with Al Qaeda, including elements of the secessionist movement active in the southern Philippines since the 19th century, are to be suppressed.


. The war on terrorism has only started, according to Mr. Bush. The peril it confronts "draws closer and closer." "The world's most dangerous regimes" will not be allowed "to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons," he says.


. He repeats that permanent mobilization of the American nation is required, as well as greatly increased military spending. The alarmist language of Mr. Bush's address and its identification of the enemy in metaphysical, rather than political, terms (the enemy is "evil," not a band of terrorists, or several foreign governments) were consistent with all that the White House already has said about the terrorist threat.


. Once again, though, the president has persisted in giving the Islamists what they presumably most want: admission of American vulnerability and recognition of themselves as America's greatest challenge.


. He did so despite the fact that Al Qaeda is much less well financed and less powerful than, say, organized crime or international drug cartels. .


Paul Schroeder, a University of Illinois historian, writing about Sept. 11 in the current issue of a conservative Washington quarterly, The National Interest, says, "by endlessly rehearsing the magnitude of the loss, labeling it a national tragedy, disaster and even catastrophe, by hyperventilating in denouncing the action and demanding vengeance, and by panicking at the fear of still more attacks," Americans "have encouraged the terrorists to believe that the United States really can be badly hurt by actions like these." .


And such a belief, of course, is not in the least true. The Sept. 11 attacks took many lives but did no serious objective damage to the United States, as a nation. .


Al Qaeda, moreover, is surely shaken and dispersed by the raids and bombing attacks on its leadership in Afghanistan, the Taliban defeat and by the mobilization of police and intelligence services nearly everywhere to penetrate and neutralize its networks. ..


The American public nonetheless seems to accept the White House assessment of terrorist power and the rogue nation threat. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released just before the State of the Union address indicated that 64 percent of the public thinks that most of the military action in the war against terrorism is yet to come. ..


Thus, Mr. Bush's call for sustained mobilization and his administration's demand for new military spending finds a receptive audience. Yet there was never much anxiety in the United States about future events, or fear of enemy attack, during the Cold War, or during the Korean or Vietnam wars, and certainly not during World War II. ..


There is something fake, or faintly Orwellian, in Washington's insistence that the threat is immense, that mobilization must be permanent, that the military budget be vastly increased, that civil liberties be restricted and that critics be chided as unpatriotic. ..


There is something wrong here. The threat and the reaction don't match. The greed and corruption that went into the Enron affair is a bigger threat to the United States than Osama bin Laden will ever be, and I would think most Americans, in their hearts, know it. ..


Los Angeles Times Syndicate. .

[vannrox]

We represent writers, artists, publications and online services, selling to customers in more than 100 countries.

William Pfaff
Political Commentary

Paris-based William Pfaff is impossible to pigeonhole politically.

He is an acerbic, erudite writer who eschews orthodoxies, trendiness and party lines. His twice-weekly columns, which usually focus on European affairs from an American perspective, are fearlessly original and thought-provoking. Pfaff takes his readers beyond the chaotic clamor of the day's headlines and helps make sense of the world by examining the likely outcomes of long-term policies. He offers an idiosyncratic brand of commentary that can be found nowhere else.

Representatives of publishers or Web sites may receive samples and purchasing information by calling 1-800-LATIMES, ext. 77987 or e-mailing latsinfo@lats.com.

[vannrox]

William Pfaff is an American writer on contemporary history and politics. He writes a twice-weekly editorial column for The International Herald Tribune in Paris, internationally syndicated by The Los Angeles Times. Between 1971 and 1992 he regularly contributed political essays, published as "Reflections," to the The New Yorker magazine. He has also written for Foreign Affairs, Commentaire, The New York Review of Books, etc.

His most recent book is The Wrath of Nations, Civilization and the Furies of Nationalism, an examination of nationalism’s origins an implications, published by Simon & Schuster in New York and London in 1993. It has since been published in German and Spanish translations (Die Furien des Nationalismus, Eichborn Verlag; La Ira de las Naciones, Editorial Andres Bello), and an Italian translationis in preparation.

His Barbarian Sentiments: How the American Century Ends, published in New York in 1989 and in Paris, Frankfurt, and Lisbon, was a finalist for the U.S. National Book Award European prize for a political work in French, the City of Geneva’s Prix Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

He is author or co-author of four other books on contermporary history or American foreign relations, including two influential 1960s critiques of U.S. foreign policy, The New Politics and Power and Impotence. The Politics of Hysteria, The Sources of 20th Century Conflict (1964) dealt with the impact of the modern west on the non-western civilizations. (Like the two foreign-policy works, it was a collaboration with the late Edmund Stillman.) His Condemned to Freedom (1971) was an examination of the internal crisis of liberal society. His autobiographical essay, "The Lay Intellectual," was included in Best American Essays 1987.

He was, in 1961, one of the earliest members of the American policy research group The Hudson Institute, and from 1971 to 1978 was Deputy Director of its European Affiliate, Hudson Research Europe, Ltd. Before that he was an executive of the Free Europe Committee, parent-organization of Radio Free Europe and the Free Europe Press, and in the early 1950s he was an editor of Commonwealth.

He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, and has lectured there and at Yale, Johns Hopkins (SAIS), and has been Regents’ Lecturer and the University of California/San Diego.

He is married to the former Carolyn Cleary of Sydney, Australia, also a writer. They have two grown children, and make their home in Paris.

[Kermit]

"Once again, though, the president has persisted in giving the Islamists what they presumably most want: admission of American vulnerability and recognition of themselves as America's greatest challenge."

So, all the terrorists want is an admission of American vulnerability and recognition. I thought they wanted to kill Americans, drive the US out of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East and eventual total victory of Islam over the rest of the world. Silly me. Mr Pfaff is obviously so much smarter than the rest of us. We just need to turn ourselves over to the care of Mr Pfaff.

[Catspaw]

Paul Schroeder, a University of Illinois historian, writing about Sept. 11 in the current issue of a conservative Washington quarterly, The National Interest, says, "by endlessly rehearsing the magnitude of the loss, labeling it a national tragedy, disaster and even catastrophe, by hyperventilating in denouncing the action and demanding vengeance, and by panicking at the fear of still more attacks," Americans "have encouraged the terrorists to believe that the United States really can be badly hurt by actions like these." .

Oh, pish posh. It was only 3000 or so people in a land of a few hundred million and what's that to some painfully sophisticated ultra-lefty intellectual, who, now that some time has gone by, thinks of grief and pain in the objective. Oh, and he's thinking all those people who go on about the death of their loved ones as not being intellectually and emotionally mature enough to handle a few deaths in the family.

Spare me.

[WriteOn]

Barf

[Right_in_Virginia]

"The threat and the reaction don't match. The greed and corruption that went into the Enron affair is a bigger threat to the United States than Osama bin Laden will ever be, and I would think most Americans, in their hearts, know it. .."

Time to get back on the meds, Mr. Pfaff.

[nsmart]

1) I don't call people names and I ask for the same courtesy please.

2) The CIA is responsible for 2.5 billion in arms getting into Afghanistan and then leaving the nation with a Jihad of our own creation to oust the Russians. In 1975 I had a foreign student from Afghanistan long before the USSR went in. Our CIA was in contact with us to get listening devices in that nation. Our CIA has been stirring the pot all over the world and in fomenting battles (not on our land) on surrogate lands with many, many innocents losing their lives. We did it in Peru, We did it in Indonesia, We did it in the Middle East first supporting the Shah who tortured his citizens, then supporting Saddam as he bombed Iran, then supporting Saudi as we bombed Saddam -- AND STILL BOMB IRAQ.. Gosh that CIA is a wonder.. aren't they?

3) I believe our "DEFENSE DEPT" is named DEFENSE for a reason.. and has not been used as DEFENSE for so long they think they have to create a new CINQ to fill the job.. geez..

[Southern Federalist]

And most Americans, in their hearts, know it.

LOL. That's why Bush's approval ratings haven't dipped below 80% since September 11.

[crystalk]

But look what a favor we would be doing for the people of those oppressed countries if we DID intervene and topple their governments.

Why do the Euro-lefties want to keep these people enslaved to the kind of subhuman beasts that rule over there now?

[Southern Federalist]

He is an acerbic, erudite writer who eschews orthodoxies, trendiness and party lines. His twice-weekly columns, which usually focus on European affairs from an American perspective, are fearlessly original and thought-provoking.

Which, being interpreted, means: an utterly predictable Leftist who's mastered the trick of making other Leftists feel smart for reading him.

[sinkspur]

Our CIA has been stirring the pot all over the world and in fomenting battles (not on our land) on surrogate lands with many, many innocents losing their lives. We did it in Peru, We did it in Indonesia, We did it in the Middle East first supporting the Shah who tortured his citizens, then supporting Saddam as he bombed Iran, then supporting Saudi as we bombed Saddam -- AND STILL BOMB IRAQ.. Gosh that CIA is a wonder.. aren't they?

The CIA has been hamstrung since 1976, with the infamous Church Committee castrating its ability to take down people like Hussein.

Yeah. Carter withdrew support for the Shah, and look at the garbage running Iran now. THEY don't torture their citizens?

You've been reading too many Mother Jones articles about the CIA. The CIA is about to become the entity that it was meant to be. And thank God for that.

[jwalsh07]

Bush's Alarmism Gives Islamic Rebels What They Most Want

Lead in the head?

[nsmart]

And the 10s of thousands killed in the riots in Indonesia? Oh, they weren't American? What about Kissinger support for Pinochet? Sending the CIA down there? Come on. The Defense Department has a covert agency, let them handle it. Th CIA and the FBI were playing gotcha and let the 911 terrorists slip into the country in the first place. How can you defend them?