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The
Making of Osama Bin Democrats
January
30, 2004
By Terry Sawyer
Conservatives have wasted no time in manipulating the atmosphere
of fear caused by September 11th, pushing through much of
their age-old legislative agenda under the "new" auspices
of fighting the terrorist hordes. Frankly there's nothing
beneath a Republican but Satan's wine cellar, as war hero
and multiple amputee Max Cleland found out when conservatives
questioned his patriotism in a battle for his congressional
seat against Saxby Chambliss.
But if Michael Ledeen of the National Review is any
indication this year's presidential campaign will reach lows
heretofore unknown in politics, casting the contest as one
of either being for Bush or with the terrorists - an idiotic
dichotomy supremely suited to the President's intellectual
powers, but wholly abominable to anyone with half an ethic
to their name. I can already see the ads claiming that Osama
Bin Laden will be watching the exit polls from the comfort
of his cave in the country of one of those "allies" in the
war on terrorism, praying that Allah will shake him of the
yoke of that terrible crusader, George Bush. Ledeen writes
in this month's National Review:
"In his State of the Union address, President Bush promised
to relentlessly pursue the war against terror. He has proven
to be a man of his word, and the Saudis, Syrians, and Iranians
are no doubt praying for his defeat in November."
Not content to simply align Democrats with the Axis of Evil,
Ledeen goes further, noting that: "The mullahs know that their
best chance for survival is to defeat us in Iraq before we
vigorously support their own people against them."
Ledeen's analysis collapses nearly every single government
in the Middle East into an Al Qaeda equivalent and then folds
the whole thickheaded mess into a critique of the alleged
coziness between Democrats and terrorist governments. What
could be more filthy than casting disagreements on foreign
policy in terms of passive treason? It's exactly this sort
of cribbing from the political psychosis of Ann Coulter that
makes conservatives such dangerous bottom feeders in our body
politic.
More to the point, Ledeen elides some crucial details in
making his case. It was Bush who allowed the Bin Ladens to
leave the U.S. immediately after September 11th and he has
done nothing but shield the Saudis ever since. His administration
refused to make public reports of Saudi collaboration with
terrorist funding infrastructure and has done nothing swab
the knob of the Pakistani dictator who, without irony, calls
himself "President." Maybe it's just the labels that matter,
since we're dealing with an administration possessing an Orwellian
intoxication with the uses of meaning. (Patriot Act anyone?)
Yet, since Ledeen brought the subject up, why don't we honestly
take to task his claim that terrorists secretly pepper the
ranks of Deaniacs or wistfully pine away for a John Kerry
sweep of the primaries? It could be argued far more effectively
that with his dissembling, lawless, cowboy romp through Iraq,
Bush has succeeded only in creating a more centrally located,
festering center of terrorist recruitment to add to our growing
list of incomplete and underfunded fronts in the war on terror.
He also dishonestly equated Saddam Hussein with Al Qaeda before
hastily beginning a war against a regional threat that we
now know was anything but imminent.
With a combination of dissembling and bad intelligence, the
Bush administration has succeeded in eroding the moral legitimacy
of the War on Terror by using it to fight a war that he had
every intention of going through with even if September 11th
had never occurred. I'm quite sure that, contrary to what
Ledeen suggests, Osama Bin Laden is quite happy with the work
of the President, particularly his high-handed wasting of
every ounce of world sympathy and every opportunity for broader
collaboration.
Stocking his administration with slack-jawed fundamentalists,
some of whom take every waking chance to compare themselves
with Christ, further creates the impression that this is some
sort of unhinged Holy War designed to bring about the second
coming of Jesus, which many right-wing Christians sincerely
believe. In that same vein, he allows whackjob Generals to
recast the war on terror in terms of our God being bigger
than their God (because our God has TOW missiles and a fist
that shoots off when you push a button on his back).
If the regimes Ledeen refers to dislike the way George Bush
has handled himself (though Ledeen bothers little with anything
other than scummy innuendo), then perhaps they do so because
George Bush's actions have created instability in the region
that puts more power in the hands of fundamentalists by confirming
their view of America as a conquering thug nation of sociopathic
Christians.
I'm hoping the ugliness and hate at the core of the Republican
party will crack through, and that the PR scuzz of a shellac
job will wear thin allowing Americans once again to stare
with jaw agape like they did when Pat Buchanan foamed at the
mouth during the 1992 Republican National Convention. Without
their "compassionate" cross-dressing, Republicans are, on
the whole, frightening to significant majorities of American
for whom religion - while important - is not a substitute
for crack. The real war Republicans wish to fight is a Civil
one, against the Constitution and their fellow Americans.
I'm more than sure that such corrosive and callous dividing
of the American public gives more aid and comfort to terrorists
than those silly liberals and their desire to prevent unnecessary
wars and the reckless subversion of liberty.
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