Danny Novo
Get this through your stupid skulls, you right-wing morons. The “War on Terror” is not a war, and it can’t be won. Do you actually believe we can kill every single one of the terrorists? Do you think if we just kill enough of them and they will come out one day waving white flags to surrender? Do you actually believe we can capture them all and stuff into a black hole in Cuba?
Get real. Terrorism is not something that can be beaten by force. Of course you have to keep it in check with force, of course you have to defend your self with force, but this idiotic rhetoric that we can “win” the war on terror by killing all the terorists is just right-wing justification for greed and proselytizing. Don’t get this confused with guerilla wars, those are over territory, and can be ended one way or the other. Terrorism is a fight over ideas, and there is no way to extinguish ideas. All you can do is hope to make them scarce, and to provide better ideas as alternatives.
“I have more young men to throw at this bloody fight than you do” is not a winning idea. “My walls are so high you will never get in (and I won’t ever come out)” is not a winning idea. “We love the Iraqi/Afghani/brown people, but don’t touch my sister” is not a winning idea.
Believe me, smart people know this. George Bush knows this, but he continues to mislead and betray the American people, and the American spirit.
Wake up, America. This is your future. We can’t beat the terrorists by killing everyone.
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I think you misrepresent what many in the “war on terror” want to accomplish. It’s not about racism, or “killing everyone” or whatever. It’s about a war on the idea that you can use brutal terror to achieve political objectives.
Do people in the third world have legitimate grievances? Absolutely. Does that make it OK to bomb a subway tube? No.
And as for the argument that terror is an idea, not a country, so you can’t wage war against it. Fine. But we’ve also waged war on poverty, illiteracy, AIDS, and a host of other things. Are those things winnable? Perhaps not. Should we still fight the good fight? Hell yes.
BTW. You don’t win too many arguments by calling people morons. You win arguments by appealing to their better angels. And, no, I’m not a right wing hack. I’m not even white. I’m one of those brown people who came to this country in search of a better life, leaving everything behind because THIS is a land of opportunity.
And I’m frequently disappointed when the suggestion that “Americans” shouldn’t die to free other people … as was the case w/ the “bring them home” after Somalia. As if the freedom and safety of brown/black/yellow skinned people isn’t worth the drop of a single white soldier’s blood. Think about it.
Miguel, your points are good ones, and I may have flown off the handle a bit. You’ll have to bear with me, I live in Nebraska.
But. My complaint is with the rhetoric put forth by the Bush Administration, this rhetoric of a “war” that implies it can be won. There are so many people in this country who don’t take the time to think for themselves, who believe what their pastor, their newscaster, or their radio host says. They believe Bush when he looks them in the eye and says, “The economy is doing fine. Trust me.” They believe him when he implies that if we just continue with the Mission, we will win this war on terror.
I believe that Americans want to believe that the terrorist threat–a threat most of them did not really understand before 9/11/01–will go away. They don’t understand that terrorism, by it’s nature, will never completely disappear.
I grew up in Spain in the 80’s, just post Franco and during an active time in ETA’s terrorist campaign. When 9/11 unfolded, Americans were shocked, but it felt somewhat familiar to me, albeit a much greater horror than anything ETA had ever perpetrated.
You mistake my anger at the Bush Administration’s policies for anger at the world’s way of confronting terrorism. I fully understand that the men and women who have taken up arms in a cowardly fashion will not be swayed by conciliation and weapons handovers. I believe, as you seem to, that working to ameliorate the conditions that breed terrorists is also a useful avenue (though those conditions are legion, from poverty and genocide to religious zeal to entrenched culture to greed).
And I fully believe that America, and Americans, have a duty to assist the world when trouble crops up. I am horrified that we have not led a charge for change in Darfur. That Bush promises AIDS assistance to Africa with one side of his mouth, while under-delivering. That our “assistance” to the Iraqi people has killed 23,000 civilians. I would like to have my tax dollars help unfortunate people around the world, even if itmeans sending our troops. But invading a sovereign nation, curtailing civil liberties, and deliberately misleading his own people are all legitimate reasons–in my mind–to dislike President Bush and his Administration.
And finally, on the “morons” issue. I know what you’re saying, but I’m tired of trying to meet the conservatives in the middle, only to have my hand chopped off. After this last election cycle, I decided to take a position much more of the Party in Opposition. Take McCain, for example. I used ot like him, despite his stand on social issues. Now, after watching him bow and scrape to GW during the election, I have no respect left.
Bush won the election with 51% of the vote. But now more than 60% of people polled believe he is doing a poor job, that the war is wrong, that the economy is in bad shape, etc. In my opinion, those people should have stood up back in November. This is what they wanted, and they got it.
I can respect that. But keep in mind that “conservatives” aren’t all one giant group. And many people lumped into the “conservative” camp are often not conservative at all. I could be called a neocon, since, like Wolfowitz (who, like me, was a socialist) believe that the Cold War policy was wrong, that we should’ve supported only democratic regimes (and pushed dictatorships towards democracy), etc.
But I’m for same-sex marriages (or, actually, the abolition of marriage as a state instution altogether), I support Israel and a two-state solution, I oppose affirmative action because it insults me as a Latino to think that I can’t make it w/o government help. I believe in capitalism because it helped my family go form food stamps and welfare to the middle class through hard work. And I could go on.
Yes, many conservatives are jackasses. But so are many liberals. The only way politics will be decent again any time soon is if those of us who are moderates continue to reach out, continue to admonish the jerks on our side, too, and keep pushing for moderate discourse.
I’m dating a life-long Democrat; I registered w/ the GOP (proudly) on my 18th birthday. So, see, it can work! ;-)
Oh, and I was a socialist in my mid-20s. Before that, I was a Republican. Just to be clear. Now, I consider myself a “liberal hawk” (socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and realpolitik advocate). I even voted for the Socialist Party in 2000, because I didn’t like Bush (he seemed too isolationist for my taste) and would never vote for Gore (founder of the PMRC! that’s ultraconservative). In 2004, Bush had my vote mostly because of the Wolfowitz doctrine that advocated supporting democratizatio around the world (as an immigrant from a South American country, it was an easy choice). Kerry almost had me, but the isolationist course he wanted, and his unwillingness to be bold, left me voting for Bush by default. Frankly, I’d rather Tony Blair was my president.