Eugene, this is a very complex issue and has to be further analyzed than
just "What is that bum in the White House doing?" Personally, I don't
believe Bush is a legitimate president, and he does have a record of
picking fights - with Putin, with China, etc. and you are almost
certainly right when you say he will in fact try to "hijack" this
situation for his own advantage.
However.
The facts are that at least one, and probably several fundamentalist
Islamic groups have declared war in word and in deed on the United States
with the express plan of using terrorism against civilians. If you
follow European affairs, you will know that over the years there have
been many terror bombings there, too, on both the Continent and in the
UK. Terrorism against civilians has become an ongoing threat, and not
just is Western nations. Sri Lanka, for example, has had a similar
situation for many years with Tamil military groups.
Whatever may be thought by people living in safe (?) countries like
Canada and New Zealand, the situation now is that the United States is at
war, and not a war that we declared. Whatever the root causes of that
war, it is not at a point of "OK, we fix the causes (as if they were so
simple to fix) and then the war will go away." The war is here.
Independent of Bush. Independent of Israel/Palestinian conflict. Bin
Laden himself has proclaimed that his major grudge against the US came
from the stationing of American troops on holy Saudi land during the Gulf
War and the resulting desecration of Islamic values. He also wants to
bring down all secularist Muslim governments. This is not a situation
that can be "fixed" like you fix your SUV when it breaks down.
We in the US have a nasty but unavoidable problem. We have to wage a war
to keep our people from being slaughtered, and we have to do it without
overstepping the bounds of morality and common decency while having as
president someone I personally think isn't fit to drive a bus, much less
manage the only remaining superpower.
Pretending we aren't at war is only going to complicate the real issue -
dealing with taking necessary military action in ways which are both
effective and moral. Note that I am not a pacifist - I believe that
killing in self defense is justified - but that there are moral and
immoral ways of conducting wars. We are going to go in to get Bin Laden
and we are going to kill him and every one of his terror group we can get
- and we are right. What we will not do, I hope, is do it in such a way
that Afghani civilians, who Heaven knows have suffered enough already,
will further suffer. The US government is already modulating its public
stance to one of "the right action at the right time." There are
enough real professionals in the White House that Bush will be
restrained. If you follow the news, you will notice that almost
everybody is becoming less hotheaded. Realism is setting in - and the
knowledge that things are going to be tough for a long time to come.
If anyone finds this offensive, so be it. Just remember that these
people are just as willing to kill fellow Muslims who don't agree with
them as they're ready to kill me (and maybe you). Non"fundamentalist"
Muslims are in danger too, and less able to do anything about it because
of cultural and family ties, and Muslim governments are hindered by the
terrorist groups in their own countries (Remember the assassination of
Anwar Sadat, and the attempts on Mubarak's life.) Remember that the
Taliban were NOT elected as the government of Afghanistan. They got
there by force of arms, and there are still groups fighting them. All
people are not nice, all people are not reasonable, all people are not
ready to get along if we just "give them the chance." Some - not many ,
but enough to make a difference - are ready to kill you and me and the
nice (Muslim) lady down my block, just because we're citizens of a
particular country.
Rachel Heckert
On Sun, 16 Sep 2001 14:58:18 -0400 "Eugene Matusov" <ematusov@udel.edu>
writes:
> Dear Rachel--
>
> cut<
>
> You are right that if this tragedy had happened with people I knew,
> I'd
> be paralyzed. However, I'd hope that people who are not paralyzed
> would
> help to avoid future tragedies like that, especially tragedies that
> people close to me, living in the same country may be involved. I'd
> hope
> that there would be people who would not allow some politicians to
> hijack the tragedy for their own political purposes that often
> produce
> more tragedies like that.
>
> In his short term, I can see a pattern of how Bush administration
> systematically uses, exploits, and promotes crises for its political
> goals -- economic, energy, and now war. I wonder if this ruling by
> crises is Bush's way to deal with his lack of mandate in the past
> election....
>cut<
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Oct 10 2001 - 15:49:16 PDT