Archives
Sunday, May 02, 2004
. . . BECAUSE NOBODY WILL REMEMBER OR CARE . . . I was a latecomer in supporting this "war" on terror. It seemed to me to be a lot like the "war" on drugs or the "war" on crime -- just the most recent excuse to expand an already intrusive federal government and run roughshod over what little was left of the U.S. Constitution.As things have proceeded, I am now convinced that "war" is the correct term and my initial suspicions were unfounded. It is within this context that I am astounded at the complaint that the Bush Administration failed to prepare Americans for the cost, length, and commitment required in this war -- see Miami Herald from April 2, 2004 as one example of this oft-repeated accusation.
You see, one of my own earliest objections to the Bush Administration was the (to me) overblown nature of its description of the Islamo-fascist threat. I distinctly remember shouting out loud, "How ridiculous!" when Vice President Cheney proclaimed in his most solemn voice, "It is different than the Gulf War was, in the sense that it may never end. At least, not in our lifetime" (see National Review, Dec 17, 2001).
What the hell? A lifetime of war? It couldn't be. I grew up at the tail end of the Cold War, in which entire cities faced total, simultaneous annihilation with about eleven minutes notice -- there were even debates about whether or not the impending victims should be notified. What good would it do?
That colossal threat didn't endure for quite a lifetime. I couldn't see how the 10,000 nuclear ICBMs of the Soviet Union were a lesser challenge than a gang of angry Islamists who have to steal whatever they can muster to throw at us. Even the World Trade Towers/Pentagon attacks required the theft of commercial airliners. These guys couldn't possibly take a lifetime to defeat.
Well, now it is 2004, and I understand that we're confronting more than a gang of thieves. I know we're up against some murderous unknown percentage of a billion muslims. It's become possible for me to comprehend that it may take a lifetime. Yet according to polls, the American people seem to have forgotten the nature of the threat as it was described by the Bush Administration very early on in the process. And as a nation, we're apparently shocked that it has taken more than one full year to instil an idea that western nations have wrestled with since the Magna Carta in a part of the world that has only recently emerged from the 7th century. Huh?
It seems that when it come to beating the Bush Administration, any stick will do. Forgetting what has been said in the past is the preferred way of redirecting blame in the present. "I wasn't prepared" can thus become "I wasn't prepared by the Bush Administration." Cut me a break.
Don't hold your breath, my friend.
 |
 Home Page |
 InstaPunk.com |
 |
 |
