Terrorists here, terrorists there, terrorists lurking everywhere
*

The president read a long speech on October 6th. He needs to boost the sagging polls and the speech writers went all out to assist him. The cold war was mentioned in context with Islamic terrorism. We have a new cold warrior fighting the good battle, defending us from the evil doers.In a report titled "Bush Says 10 Plots by Al Qaeda Were Foiled" The Washington Post's Peter Baker and Susan B. Glaser commented about the vagueness of the threats mentioned in the speech.

"Most of the plots were previously reported in some form; a few were revealed yesterday. The White House had never before placed a number or compiled a public list of the foiled attempts to follow up the Sept. 11 attacks, but it offered scant information beyond the location and general date of each reported plot -- making it difficult to assess last night how serious or advanced they were or what role the government played in preventing them."

"Faulty Logic"

Editorial in today's Minneapolis Star-Tribune reads in part:

"Myers' view, which Bush immediately quashed, overflowed with common sense and practical wisdom. Bush's Cold War construction overflows with faulty logic; it tries to make Islamic radicalism fit a familiar -- and therefore comforting war-justifying -- mold that doesn't work."

"The great error of nearly all studies of war... has been to consider war as an episode in foreign policies, when it is an act of interior politics..."
---Simone Weil

Comments

Nick Mercer — 2005-10-09
the simone weil quote was apt. In england i and many others are rendered almost inarticulate with rage at the collective denial of the labour party and their readiness to abandon their principles for cash and comfortable positions. tony blair mincing into the arms of george bush clearly intoxicated with the prospect of some rough trade i expected. his willingness to forfeit reason and sobriety for the heady rush of vicarious power is a salutary lesson to us all, if indeed one were needed, of the instability of politicians, whatever their political hue, everywhere. We should pull out of iraq and own our folly whatever the consequences. forgive the hyperbole but i've been loathe previously to show up in the debate lest i fuelled the fire. violence, militiary action, is a betrayal of all of us (and the memories of the millions of my fellow countrymen who died while the politicians who condemned them sat on their arses in comfort and died rich and old). and this isn't hindsight - i along with millions of others, in fact everybody i know spanning the whole spectrum of opinion, unequivocally rejected the weapons of mass destruction nonsense (whatever the fuck they are) then watched in disbelief as the tragedy unfolded. No-one seemed capable of or willing to ask specific sober questions to arrest and dispel this obvious collective delusion. in a therapeutic situation the most healing contribution i can make is usually around establishing specificity - it immediately grounds the fear that fuels amnesia and panic; everybody breathes easier including the therapist as soon as the questions are asked - whatever the answers. A weapon of mass destruction is anything from a trebuchet to an atomic bomb.Without clarification its meaningless. yet this emotive and banal phrase became the foundation stone for an inverse pyramid of justification that sought to establish itself as real through self reference and emphatic repetition (and a reliance on general intellectual laziness and a 'family illness' theory of politics - that its easier to collude than to challenge). whilst accepting that there is a political motivation around oil etc in bush and blairs foreign adventures i still believe the real drive comes from both politicians readiness to default to infantile behavioural patterns however well or poorly camoulflaged by the language of jurisprudence in blairs case (and, of course, the readiness of the scoundrel 'patriots' that surround them to collude with their phantasies for self interest - like michael jackson's plastic surgeons). Enough for now, i just wanted to declare myself. I've heard it said that anyone who even hints of a desire to enter politics to 'represent' others or 'help' their fellows without being asked should be bundled into 12 step treatment without ceremony and robustly encouraged to examine their motives and their history. can't say fairer than that. keep posting musafir and thank you.