Quote:
Originally Posted by justplugit
If my memory serves me right, and it hasn't always at times lately  ,
I remember Busch after 9/11 declaring war on terror wherever it was, where terrorists were killing innocents.
It was to be a new kind of war,
taking decades to fight using intelligence, disruption of terror $ and communication, and taking pre-emptive strikes where needed with new as well as old tactics.
Doesn't seem to me like he lumped or used one size fits all tactics in dealing with the three you mentioned. |
Bush certainly took the position that the post 9/11 world required a new approach to security. But think about how he decided to apply this new approach. Saddam and Bin Laden were treated as the same regardless of the reality. Iran and Bin Laden were treated as the same regardless of the reality. Political terrorism like in Chechnya or Palestine was mixed with Religious extremism like in Pakistan as if they all had the same root causes.
The only common factor is Islam, yet Bush insists we're not at war with Islam. This is the contradiction that's been exploited to gain sympathy for those who do mean to do us harm. People (on the Right) are always trying to knock this, who cares what they think etc..., but the reality is that without mainstream sympathy the real terror organizations have little leverage.
The big problem with the Bush approach is that he had an opportunity to divide these challenges and deal with them as more fragmented issues. Instead they largely used the rhetoric around terrorism to win domestic elections, and in the process have driven our enemies closer together.
-spence