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"...even the wicked get worse than they deserve." - Willa Cather, One of Ours

Saturday, June 05, 2004

Is The Enemy Real?

The Nation (leftist)
Under the Banner of the 'War' on Terror by William Greider
When President Bush called Americans to enlist in his "war on terror," very few citizens could have grasped the all-encompassing consequences of the proposition. The terrifying events of 9/11 were like a blinding flash, benumbing the country with a sudden knowledge of unimagined dangers. Strong action was recommended, skeptics were silenced and a shallow sense of unity emerged from the shared vulnerabilities. Nearly three years later, the enormity of Bush's summons to open-ended "war" is more obvious. It overwhelmed the country, in fact deranged society's normal processes and purposes with a brilliantly seductive political message: Terror pre-empts everything else.

What this President effectively accomplished was to restart the cold war, albeit under a new rubric...Fanatical Muslims replaced Soviet Communists and, like the reds, these enemies could be anywhere, including in our midst (they may not even be Muslims, but kindred agents who likewise "hate" us and oppose our values)...The political commodity of fear has no practical limits. The government has the ability to manufacture more.

[...]

"War on terror" is useful for the President, but irrational for the nation...
This threat was not "manufactured" by the Bush administration, nor did McCarthy invent the threat of international communism. They merely used a truly terrifying reality for their own political purposes.

During the cold war I classified myself an anti-communist, even long after such a viewpoint became unfashionable among my fellow Democrats. In fact, while the cold war was still 'hot' I even joined the US Navy with and understanding that I was willing to die to stop communist aggression, like the one against the people of Afghanistan. But many Democrats became so caught up in their anger at McCarthy and Nixon and the other vicious cretins of their ilk, that they became reflexive anti-anti-communists. Of course, this is quite understandable.

But it should never be forgotten that, even if a loathsome villain believes something to be true, it does not mean that it is in fact not true. It is the idea that is true or false, not the person who holds the idea. A despicable person can use the truth to evil ends (and this is often more useful for them than a lie), but the truth is still the truth. The fact was that there were communists among us dedicated to violent revolution and the destruction of the United States of America as we know it. Unfortunately, McCarthy and Nixon abused these truths and thereby undermined a noble struggle against communism.

In fact, men like McCarthy, Nixon and the idiots at the CIA did not really have faith in the values and ideals of America. They thought our society was weak and corrupt in much the same way as the anti-American left did. The cretins at the CIA wrote those ridiculous estimates of communist power because they did not truly believe that liberty, justice and a free economy were superior to the fascistic political and economic system used under the communist regimes. They did not truly believe in "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness". In their hearts, they thought that fascist societies were stronger than democracies. History has proven them wrong.

Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and most Democrats of those generations were not fools blinded by right-wing rhetoric. They came to the correct and rational understanding that revolutionary communism presented a significant threat to liberty around the world and in the United States. That is why they supported the highly aggressive 'containment' policy. The premise of this policy was that if the evils of communism were resolutely confronted and contained, then eventually the corruption and inherent weakness of the communist system would cause it to fail from within. It was right-wing crypto-fascists like McCarthy and Nixon who corrupted this idea into a version of anti-communism that was rightly rejected by the American public.

The "War on Terror", what I like to call (and I think it is more accurate) the 'war on Islamic fascism', is a just and noble undertaking.

It is a reality even if Bush also believes in it.
Posted by: Zayphar / 6/05/2004 10:50:00 AM
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