Terms of endearment
I think, for the first time in a very long time, I happen to agree more with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney than at least certain members of my own party. And it’s frightening to me. Especially because normally I’m well to the left of most Democrats.
Yes, it’s OK to think independently — but to agree with them?!
I was listening to Morning Edition today, and I heard a discussion of Osama bin Laden proposing a truce with the United States in a videotape given to al Jazeera. As far as we can tell it’s Osama, and he said:
We don’t mind offering you a long-term truce on fair conditions that we adhere to. We are a nation that God has forbidden to lie and cheat. So both sides can enjoy security and stability under this truce so we can build Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been destroyed in this war. There is no shame in this solution, which prevents the wasting of billions of dollars that have gone to those with influence and merchants of war in America who have supported Bush’s election campaign with billions of dollars — which lets us understand the insistence by Bush and his gang to carry on with war.
If you (Americans) are sincere in your desire for peace and security, we have answered you.
Andrew Sullivan today links to one of his “Moore Award” recipients, for anti-war liberals most unhinged from reality — and there’s a lot of candidates out there, a lot of “BUSH NEW ABOUT THE H1JAKERS LIED AND KILLED 3,000 AMER1CANS” and similar ridiculous, stupid nonsense.
(This is a separate topic, but Andrew also gives out a variety of other fun awards: the “Malkin Award” for equally unhinged conservatives; the “Yglesias Award” for politicians or pundits willing to tell the harsh truth to their own followers; and the “Von Hoffmann Award,” for dumbest and most impressively wrong predictions.)
Anyway, today’s joyous post is a Daily Kos contribution which has since been removed, but it mirrors exactly what I can’t possibly understand about certain people, with whom I’m sure I would normally agree:
I realized that I empathized and agreed with bin Laden’s hatred of Bush and all he stands for. Bush is not America and while Binny may just be baiting us, I would welcome a truce if it included the impeachment of Bush as part of the bargain. You know the state of the nation is bad if it can get me to look at Binny boy in any light other than a fundamentalist wacko mass murderer. But, at this point in time, I honestly feel more disdain for Bush and his administration than I do for bin Laden.
Wait. What?! Huh?! “I honestly feel more disdain for Bush and his administration than I do for bin Laden.”
I honestly don’t know what to make of that, but it so angered me reading it that I took a 10-minute break from writing this post to calm down. George W. Bush is many things: a moron, a fool, an incompetent surrounded by sycophantic mandarins, a waste of $400,000 a year of our tax dollars, and certainly one of the great snake-oil peddlers of our time, selling us suspiciously grand pleasures for a very inexpensive price. But one thing King George is not is a callous mass murderer of civilians, the sort of man whose hatred for civilization knows no bounds and who is committed to spending millions of dollars lobbing grenades at the very underpinnings of the modern world.
The terrifying thing is that, for once, I think it is George who has a handle on the situation. It’s like “The Bizarro Jerry” episode of “Seinfeld,” when Elaine befriends Jerry’s exact opposite; all of a sudden black is white and up is down and the sky is green and WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE WORLD?
Here’s Scott McClellan’s response to questions about bin Laden’s truce:
“Clearly the al Qaeda leaders and other terrorists are on the run, they’re under a lot of pressure. We do not negotiate with terrorists, we put them out of business,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.
“The terrorists started this war and the president made it clear that we will end it at a time and place of our choosing. We continue to pursue all those who seek to do harm to the American people,” he said.
See? That’s what a sane, reasonable foreign policy includes: recognition of reality. There is one and only one reason you cannot negotiate with terrorists: terrorists are non-state actors, not signatory to or subject to the rules of war as set out in the Geneva conventions. When you negotiate the terms of a settlement or a truce, you do so with the recognition that you will be monitoring the terms of the settlement; the West knew that Hitler was remilitarizing the Rhineland, and chose not to act — yet they knew.
If an NSA, especially one as secretive as al Qaeda, were to be in violation of the terms of a truce, however, there would be no way to know.
How could you ever hope to negotiate a truce when only one side — the side with more to lose — is the side structurally transparent and sound enough to be subject to monitoring?
I am not so intolerant as to suggest that people who believe that they prefer Osama bin Laden’s Islamist regime to Bush’s usurpations should put their money where their mouth is. I want them to truly listen to themselves, and think about it. Think about whether they’d really want to live in a society where women must wear the veil, where men can’t trim their beards; where the slightest doctrinal deviation from shariah is punishable in ways infathomable to Westerners. Isn’t the whole point, the very fundamental essence, of being a Democrat that you support a pluralistic and egalitarian society?
In contrast, George W. Bush is clearly a committed pluralist, at least personally; there is no reason to believe that a man who is a close friend of African Americans, Jews, gays and lesbians, and liberal Democrats (e.g., Ted Kennedy) would ever seek to impose the theocracy that his followers are so convinced he brings with him. Osama bin Laden would never hesitate.
Then, you, too, will have to consider how it feels to agree with Scott McClellan.
But at least we’ll agree that George is better than Osama.
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