I was puzzled by this story starting with the first paragraph:
War on Terror Criticized for Lack of Focus
Shift From ‘Generic Evil’ Sought
The Sept. 11 commission report offers a broad critique of a central tenet of the Bush administration’s foreign policy — that the attacks have required a “war on terrorism.”
The report argues that the notion of fighting an enemy called “terrorism” is too diffuse and vague to be effective. Strikingly, the report makes no reference to the invasion of Iraq as being part of the war on terrorism, a frequent assertion of President Bush and his top aides.
“The first phase of our post-9/11 efforts rightly included military action to topple the Taliban and pursue al Qaeda. This work continues,” the report said. “But long-term success demands the use of all elements of national power: diplomacy, intelligence, covert action, law enforcement, economic policy, foreign aid, public diplomacy, and homeland defense. If we favor one tool while neglecting others, we leave ourselves vulnerable and weaken our national effort.”
I was confused because it seemed to bash the “Global War on Terror” but then call for “the use of all elements of national power: diplomacy, intelligence, covert action, law enforcement, economic policy, foreign aid, public diplomacy, and homeland defense” which sounded a whole lot like the GWOT to me.
So I pulled up my copy of the report and did a search for ‘generic evil’. I started reading Chapter 12, “What To Do? A Global Strategy” (page 378 of pdf) To my astonishment, I found what the report really said:
…In this sense, 9/11 has taught us that terrorism against American interests
Would “WaPo Suppresses the Point” be too strong?
This is the difference between a Sept. 10 person and a Sept. 12 person.
I have had the “you are either with us or against us” line tossed in my face again and again lately. By lefties who 1) think Bush was talking to them (i.e. dropping the context of the remark) and 2) really don’t want anything to do with the war anyway.
I have to keep saying that it is not Bush or even the Republican party that presents all of us with that choice. It is the jihadis. Thanks to the commision for saying the same thing.
Page number clarifications:
The quoted passage appears on printed page number 362, about halfway through the page. In the PDF, that is page 379 (faces page 378).
Sounds like the Commission is saying – 300 pages into the report – what the rest of us have been saying for the past three years. As Mike says in his comment, this realization is the difference between a September 10th and a September 12th person, it is the core fact that Bush understands but Kerry does not, and it is why libertarians are going with Bush and not Kerry.
It’s just too bad the Commission didn’t have the guts to put that conclusion in the first paragraph of the Executive Summary where even the dumbest, laziest and most partisan reporters can spot it (using search tools and buttons is apparently something journalists, unlike bloggers, are not trained to do).
The scary point to all this is that precious few Americans will actually go to the trouble of researching what the media reports to be contained in the Commission Report.
I have contended that the “war on terror” is in fact a religious conflict from the beginning, not necessarily Christian vs. Islam, but rather Every-Other-Religion-In-The-World vs. Radical Islam. As long as there are Islamic Fundamentalists in the world who espouse the view that the “infidels” must be destroyed, we’ll have problems. Why do the bulk of Arab Nations hate the U.S.? Because we’re perceived as a Christian nation, due to our founding principles, and because of our Western philosophy, a product of Judeo-Christian beliefs and values.
Sadly, blanket extermination of the current crop of radicals is the first step to a solution. Barbaric as it may seem to be, we ultimately have no other choice.
There seems to be a total lack of principle, honesty, and courage in the mainstream media. They concern themselves with the political games of correctness and power and ignore the basic values of human life and liberty. They are essentially on the side of the terrorists.
Even the very politicized and partisan bickering 9/11 Commission has to tell some obvious truths
Most people hasten to make this distinction between radical Islam and the rest. That may be a useful distinction when we’re talking about humane treatment of next-door neighbors. But we need to give consideration to the possibility that Islam and the Koran will always generate a radical faction. If some noticeable fraction of muslims will always be radicalized through contact with the Koran, due to what’s said in Suras 2 and 9 perhaps especially, then what does it matter if the rest of muslims are supposedly moderate? The contribution of rank-and-file muslims to terrorism is to breed new young men, some fraction of whom will always read the Koran and be radicalized. I think the Koran will always generate radicals from among muslims and I think that we should therefore endeavor to destroy the faith in Allah, Mohammed, and the Koran.
The administration’s casting of the war as against “terrorism” is only a political expedient. Terrorism is a strategy, not an enemy. The real war is against radicalized Muslims. We all understand that. You do. I do. Even the Saudis do. Of course the Democrats do. Lord, if they understand anything, let them understand that