Of course this is an outrage. If we had a real Republican he-man in office we wouldn't be calling this a foiled plot or talking about trials and convictions, we'd be screaming Terrorist attack - terrorist attack and the cruise missiles would already be on course for somewhere.
So, I'm sure it won't be long before Snarlin' Dick is back on TV explaining to us that our educated and therefore unmanly President is pretending, by not running naked through the streets screaming TERRORIST ATTACK, that "we are not at war." Of course it takes considerable screaming and snarling to keep the discussion away from what a real war really is -- especially one in which victory is nearly impossible to define much less than to achieve.
Like our valiant war on poverty, war on drugs, war on crime and war on pornography, this one resembles a struggle against human nature; that nature including religion, nationalism and the tendency to hate people we see as exploiting and manipulating us. Fail to make that all change and you fail to win. In saner times and amongst saner people the eternal struggle against crime has usually been seen as the job of law enforcement and indeed this failed plot was foiled by good police work and a little luck. To men like Cheney, the danger in foiling plots and prosecuting the criminals who attempt to carry them out is precisely that we have a harder time crying war and without a war, we have to conduct ourselves more in accordance with the law and indeed with reasonableness and sanity.
That the terrorist acts carried out in Oklahoma City and at the World Trade Center resulted in the perpetrators being caught, imprisoned and even executed will remain a thorn in the paws of people like Cheney for whom the system needs to be shown as not working when it's under a Democratic administration and working well when under a Republican. So what if it results in hundreds of thousands of innocent casualties, the destruction of countries, the exile of its citizens and of course, the creation of vastly increased anti-American hatred. In this respect, Cheney's objectives, being aided by every attack and thwarted by every foiled attack or captured terrorist, are often congruent with the objectives of al Qaeda and similar groups. In other words, America's success -- Obama's success and Clinton's successes in finding and capturing terrorists hurts Cheney and Associates; hurts their chances of defaming the Democrats, returning the berserkers to power and keeping those huge Halliburton checks rolling in.
If you're following this line of reasoning, you won't be surprised that I'm concluding that Snarlin' Dick wants more than anything to keep us all crying "terrorist attack" and to keep them coming. By the way, isn't being on the side of terrorists treason?
More conflict of interest from the former Vice Thief-in-Chief. Maybe thats why Cheney ordered the release of those two Gitmo detainees ... so they could return to Saudi Arabia, take art therapy, and turn into terrorist operatives in Yemen. Tell me, Captain: Is Cheney's Halliburton stock still escrowed, and are we being screwed again?
ReplyDeleteYes, that term “war.” The Democrats have struggled with it, how to describe the sometimes concerted actions of vicious, devious killers who hold fanatical beliefs of one sort or another. Obama went ahead and used “war” to describe our fight with the Qaida. It would be difficult for someone in his position to go the route of nuance, even if he may not hold the same views as the missile-thumpers do. To be strictly accurate, you would need to use a different term to catch the in-betweenness or hybridity of this fight, all the while reminding yourself that C21 terrorists could yet produce casualties and destruction on a horrific scale, if they can get their bloody hands on the weapons they want. It isn’t an all-out war in the traditional sense because the opponent doesn’t have the same capacity as, say, Hitler’s Wehrmacht or the Japanese Imperial Navy. It also isn’t merely a matter of criminality. These guys aren’t robbing banks or vandalizing schools—their aims obviously go beyond causing ordinary mayhem and turning a desperate buck. And even when you use a term like “asymmetrical warfare,” you’re generally implying, I think, that there’s some kind of army in the field or some traditional entity that is resorting to non-traditional tactics. Al Qaida doesn’t seem to fit into that category. Yet the consequences of definition are not trivial, as the missile-thumpers must know: the term “war” is fraught with menacing implications, and can be used to justify almost any depredation against our own citizens as well as absolutely any depredation against foreigners. It is nothing less than an organizing principle for an entire society: get behind the war, or else. That’s why Obama is wise to use the word only in a measured way (neither abandoning nor fully embracing it), and wise to distance himself from those who use it with resolute abandon.
ReplyDeleteAs Plato observed, a tyrant is always stirring up some war or other, so that the people may require a leader.
ReplyDeleteAnd my favorite: "This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs, when he first appears he is a protector."