May 11, 2007
Beliefs and realities misaligned
There’s many things about Our Fine President and his administration’s militaristic activities that don’t sit well with me, but one I understand the least is their assessment of the stakes involved. When they speak of their Global War on Terror, or whatever catchphrase they’re now using, it’s always a battle for the future of civilization and a struggle against an enemy bent on destroying our very way of life.
Yes, al Qaida is capable of great destruction and murder and they are certainly an enemy to be dealt with, but they’ve never been such a grave threat to our way of life that it’s worth altering our principals and repealing core rights and freedoms as Our Fine President has. Certainly the idea of a large scale weapon being used against our country (or any country for that matter) is frightening, lots of weapons exist and people seem to find creative ways to use technology and industry for mass destruction.
Nothing changed on Sept. 11 besides the senseless loss of thousands of lives. Osama bin Laden and his crew had been out to get us before then and they’re still out to get us now. Lots of crazy people around the world had weapons of mass destruction and once in a while they get used. The only difference is that leading up to Sept. 11, Our Fine President had let our guard down and a weapon was used on us.
That seemed to open their eyes to the reality of our dangerous world, but it opened them a bit too far as I don’t think they’ve blinked (blunk?) since. They got so scared, they turned all attention to what they think needs to be done to protect the country, and in doing so, they’ve inflated an enemy beyond recognition. Look at the hyperbole this statement from Vice President Dick Cheney on Fox News:
“We didn’t get elected to be popular. We didn’t get elected to worry just about the fate of the Republican Party. Our mission is to do everything we can to prevail on what is now, we believe, a global conflict, a fundamental test of the character of the American people, whether or not we’re going to be able to prevail against one of the most evil opponents we’ve ever faced. And on our watch, we’re going to do absolutely everything we can to see to it that we do succeed and that we do prevail in that conflict, and sometimes that means that we don’t do well in the polls or people want to be critical. That’s their prerogative. But we sit there every morning and read the intelligence reports in the Oval Office and we know what’s happening out there. We know how committed our adversaries are to try to get at us. And we’ve done what we thought was right for the country.”
Unfortunately, they seem to have been wrong at every turn since they let bin Laden and his top men escape in the Afghan mountains. The reconstruction of Afghanistan has stalled and our troops are quietly still there. Even worse, every single thing related to Iraq has been misstated, bungled, botched, covered-up, misread, misunderstood, misguided, misdirected and delayed. (although not always in that particular order) It’s almost as if they don’t understand a thing about the country they invaded or the enemy they’re fighting, so the basis for all their assumptions was quite brittle and is of course shattered by now.
It’s too bad they’re not open to outside advice because Islam expert Resa Aslan could provide quite a lesson for Our Fine President. Aslan made another appearance on The Daily Show last night and as usual he made lots of sense with his assessments of the situation. He started off saying Our Fine President and Vice President “sound like idiots” when talking about the war. As he sees it, our current approach does little to advance toward our goals and actually inflates al Qaida.
“They’re not threatening human civilization as we know it. We keep talking about them it as though they have that kind of power, but all we’re doing is giving them that power.”
Aslan then went on to explain how we’ve misread everything about both Iraq and Iran and those mistakes have us in a situation with no right answer. Iraq is a manufactured nation of several ethnic groups with no democratic tradition to speak of. In contrast, Iran is a nation with a long ethnic history and strong sense of nationalism, a grassroots democratic tradition and a large youth population. While trying to impose democracy from the top down on a divided population, Iran is quietly the only successful Mid-East democracy outside Israel.
Unfortunately, the Iranian people hate and fear us much more than their own warmongering leadership. Aslan explained that Iran doesn’t react well to our statements of support for the people because they fear we could attack at any minute. That country’s leadership continue to pursue weapons because they have a real fear of being attacked.
I wonder how Our Fine President would react if someone were constantly threatening us? Oh wait, we’re living through that and he chose the militaristic route with all the bombing other countries and trying to look tough on the world stage. Seems like he’s got more in common with those Axis of Evil leaders than he believes.
Of course, all that matters to him is just that, what he believes. Unfortunately the things he and his people believe are quite a distorted set of realities and while they act as if they’re in that world, this world suffers the consequences.