Shortly after 9/11, we asked why “they hate us.” We still haven’t considered who “they” are, much less "why" "they" allegedly hate us. At Alternet, Matt Taibbi has posted a sharp criticism of America's refusal to take this question seriously. Taibbi correctly notes that America versus the World (similarly consider American versus…
It appears that the War on Terror is shaping up to be as decisive, efficient and effective as the War on Drugs: “Mission Accomplished since 1933”. The enemy is hard to define, hard to detect, and there is no exit strategy (see bureaucracies, below) in the unlikely case of a declared win.Terror is a state of mind, a reaction to extreme and unexpected negative events. Those Saudis who attacked on 9/11/01 (using materials and training acquired in the U.S.) set off a chain of events that is turning our country into a Police State. This is a win for them.
Here are some signs of a gathering Police State.
Dear Mr. President:
Five years ago, you told us you would “bring to justice” the perpetrators of 9/11. Yet today, five years later, the man who is undisputed to have caused the 9/11 attack — Osama bin Laden — remains at large. Instead of making it your mission — and that of the U.S. military — to capture or kill bin Laden, you have wasted America’s resources — and your own — on a wild goose chase in Iraq. In the process, you have needlessly killed or maimed (both physically and emotionally) hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims. We must assume that some of these people — or their spouses, parents, children, friends, etc. — will harbor extreme hatred toward America for this loss.
Indeed, we should not think otherwise given our own extreme reaction to the 9/11 attack. We must also assume that some of these angry people will, in some way, at some point in their lives, support violence against America. Whether it is by strapping a bomb to their chest and blowing up a street market, or merely providing a safe house to someone who does, we cannot tell. But we do know, for certain, that violence begets violence, especially when the violence is perceived as unjust — which is exactly how your invasion of Iraq and many other misguided policies are perceived.
The Bible tells us to love our enemies. This probably does not mean bombing their families and neighbors, perhaps because doing so merely creates …
What does it meant to “lead”? According to dictionary.com, to “lead” means “to go before or with to show the way; conduct or escort: to lead a group on a cross-country hike.”
Based on this criterion, the websites of prominent Democrats display a stark lack of leadership on Iraq. A review of the websites of these Democrat “leaders” shows that they have no plan for dealing with the current occupation of Iraq.
I’ll cut to the chase. It seems as though we are headed for a repeat performance of the November 2004 election, where the plan of Democrats was to attack Bush as incompetent. That strategy will work even less in 2006 than 2004, because Bush is a lame duck, already thinking about packing his cowboy boots to retire to Crawford. Who cares about your concerns about a guy who is already on the way out?
The Democrats have certainly had lots of time to develop a plan on Iraq. After all, the war has been going as long as WWII, as indicated by this article from the Chicago Tribune:
The United States has been fighting in Iraq since March 19, 2003, when President Bush launched Operation Iraqi Freedom with air strikes against Baghdad. Monday marks the 1,245th day of the Iraqi conflict. By that reckoning, Americans troops will have fought in Iraq for as long as they fought Germany in World War II.
But back to the failure of prominent Democrats to develop any plan. A “plan”…
Just yesterday, I saw on the news that Bush has a new strategy for Iraq: he'll be giving a series of (ridiculous) speeches aimed at justifying his invasion of Iraq. He still believes his poll numbers are in the tank because Americans have a perception problem. That's perhaps why he…