Sunday, May 29, 2005

Remember "You're either with us or against us"?

Review May Shift Terror Policies
The article starts by saying that the US has basically declared victory in the global war on terror (cutsy nickname, GWOT) because Al Quaeda has mostly disintegrated.
So one would think that a kind of vigilant peace could now be declared and the US could move on to other things.
But not so fast, Kemo Sabe.
The Bush administration is now admitting what everyone has been saying for the last two years, that the war on Iraq has radicalized Muslims. The article notes that the Bush administration now "[has to] deal with the rise of a new generation of terrorists, schooled in Iraq over the past couple years. Top government officials are increasingly turning their attention to anticipate what one called "the bleed out" of hundreds or thousands of Iraq-trained jihadists back to their home countries throughout the Middle East and Western Europe."
Now, I think this is a little silly -- the people who came to Iraq to fight the US are either dead or are still there, fighting.
However, what concerns me most is this -- the Bush administration now may be using the radicalization they themselves caused as an excuse to begin a new war against an enemy even less clearly defined than "terrorism" was. Their new war would "target . . . broader support in the Muslim world for radical Islam."
In other words, it really will be the Christians vs the Muslims.
And in a paranoid moment, I now wonder how long with it be before they widen it again -- to define as 'radicals' anyone anywhere in the world who objects to the Bush administration itself, or who is trying to overthrow the dictators who are now allied with the Bush administration, or who elects governments which do not want to ally with Bush.
I guess we could call it the "You're either with us or against us" War.

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