[Dean's World] Dave Price: Terrorism? What Terrorism?

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Price:
Terrorism? What Terrorism?
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1203632773.shtml


   Michael Hirsh [1]approvingly quotes perhaps the stupidest thing ever
   written:

     "It is perhaps a paradoxâand one that is fitting for the
     strangeness of our current ageâthat we will need to end the war
     against terrorism because we cannot end terrorism."

   Yes, if only we had applied this logic to Communism and Nazism, we
   could have avoided so much needless conflict; there are, after all,
   still a few Communists and Nazis, so clearly we cannot end Communism
   or Nazism. It's rather amazing someone this incapable of grasping the
   obvious writes for a major newsmagazine.
   He then dismisses 9/11 as a fluke, apparently mistaking the last seven
   years of quiet here at home, the quite unexpected result of relentless
   pressure on Al Qaeda, as an indication that terrorism is no longer a
   problem (that 25 million newly liberated Iraqis still suffering
   regular suicide bombings might disagree apparently never occurs to
   him) and even more amazingly seems to think Hamas and Hizbollah aren't
   even really terrorists and don't need to be dealth with as such.
   As for Al Qaeda themselves, well, they're hardly worth a war:

     ...such a band of murderous anarchists, who have about as much hope
     of achieving their grand dream of turning the Mideast into an
     Islamist caliphate as scientists have of proving one day that the
     moon is made of green cheese.

   Really? They owned Afghanistan till we kicked them out, and seemed to
   be well on their way to carving out a respectable piece of Iraq before
   Anbar's awakening and Petraeus' surge. And let's not forget Islamists
   of another stripe already run Iran. Absent American intervention, it
   might still be difficult for the fanatics to hold the whole of the old
   Caliphate, but their ambitions are not so unlikely as all that, and as
   9/11 proved, they don't need to be world-conquerors to be a deadly
   threat.
   Hirsh's last point is perhaps the most ridiculous:

     Even in the tribal regions of Pakistan, safe haven to the newly
     regrouped Taliban and Al Qaeda, voters last week turned out radical
     religious parties because of their ineffectiveness. Al Qaeda and
     related terror groups are hardly the "heirs" to communism and
     totalitarianism, as Bush has described them.

   Yeah, great point, because we all remember how those Communists and
   totalitarians achieved and retained power by winning free and fair
   elections, impressing their electorates with skillful, effective rule.
   Bush's blindingly obvious point is precisely that Islamofascism abhors
   such representative notions, just as Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein and
   Josef Stalin did in their heyday.

References

   1. http://www.newsweek.com/id/114385