Bush Speaks

President Bush Spoke to the American Legion in Utah yesterday. "As veterans, you have seen this kind of enemy before. They're successors to Fascists, to Nazis, to Communists, and other totalitarians of the 20th century. And history shows what the outcome will be: This war will be difficult; this war will be long; and this war will end in the defeat of the terrorists and totalitarians, and a victory for the cause of freedom and liberty" It really sounds like he wants to start WWIII. Ross Douthat in the Wall Street Journal had a good article a couple of weeks ago about various schools of thought in this "war" view it, either as 1919, 1938, 1942, 1948, 1972. Bush is obviously a 42ist.

Bush said "We believe that freedom is a gift from an almighty God, beyond any power on Earth to take away" and that really disturbs me, even though it's just a rephrasing of Thomas Jefferson's "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Of course Jefferson was saying you have the right to rebel against your government, not that you have a right to attack another.

Think Progress says that Bush said he views "Sunni and Shia, Persian and Arab, Al Qaida and Hamas" as "a single movement, a worldwide network of radicals" and that this is particularly scary and naive view of the world. Well what he actually said was: "Some are radicalized followers of the Sunni tradition, who swear allegiance to terrorist organizations like al Qaeda. Others are radicalized followers of the Shia tradition, who join groups like Hezbollah and take guidance from state sponsors like Syria and Iran. Still others are 'homegrown' terrorists -- fanatics who live quietly in free societies they dream to destroy. Despite their differences, these groups from -- form the outlines of a single movement, a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology. And the unifying feature of this movement, the link that spans sectarian divisions and local grievances, is the rigid conviction that free societies are a threat to their twisted view of Islam."

So does Bush mean to declare war on on all non-free regimes? There are a lot of them.

He doesn't seem to be going after Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, where bin Laden actually is.

And of course not of this says that Bush's policies of non-negotiation and preemptive war help to achieve the spread of democracy.