Bush

Okay, I have to post on this because I watched the damn thing and well I've been a slacker with posting as it is. So last night I sit down with a bowl of guacamole and some spicy blue corn chips and prepare to be thoroughly disgusted. Then about five minutes into the speech I start thinking..."is he saying what I think he's saying? Is the President taking the blame for all the failures in Iraq? Is he in fact admitting to failure?" And just as I feel like we really are turning a corner and something good was going to happen. Bush announced his stupid arrogant plan of over 20,000 more troops and more boots in Baghdad. He also demonized Iran and Syria and went back to the rhetoric that these people don't have a conscience and they kill indiscriminately.

You know, if there's one problem above all of the problems of this administration, it's that they don't understand the simplest truth about their "war on terra". These people aren't reckless madmen going around causing chaos with no purpose. These are ideological men who've been given a clear purpose by strong leadership. They are fighting for a cause and maybe, just maybe recognizing that a cause exists and realizing that saying "all diplomatic channels are open" is just bullshit when you follow that statement by calling your enemy crazed and inhuman. I'm not trying to say that the terrorists are right. Nor am I sympathizing with their methods. But right now, this is the Guerrilla tactic of the new millennium. Where in past decades we've seen Mao and Che fight their revolutions with factory workers and farmers, these men use suicide bombs and terror.

Guerrilla fighters were against terrorism. They felt it served no purpose. It made more sense to target specific military targets or when necessary limited civilian territory for direct purpose. And given the munitions required in those regions to dispatch those "enemies of the people", Guerrilla fighters required the use of their enemy's supplies to continue the revolution.

Today it's another tactic in a different battleground. In the deserts of the middle east, the ability to make and create destructive violence in the ways of explosions and shock is more effective. While the Guerrilla's intent was to continually strike in order to keep its enemy constantly on edge, the Terrorist wants his enemy to be comfortable. He wants much of the land to seemingly appear calm and peaceful. Then when the violence erupts it is all the more spectacular, even if only a few lives are lost. Also, the psychological warfare of wounding soldiers without killing them puts an air of piety on the spin they are able to use in media to promote support from the people. Another key level to this war from abroad is in technology. We've seen videotapes of beheadings now for years. That didn't really exist before. But way back it did. Old wars often symbolically killed someone close to the enemy as a message. But in today's shrewd military climate, one man dying is easily covered up without much impact regardless of the actual loss. But when that man is brutalized in a way that frightens and is unable to be covered up because of the rash of internet friendly media, it's shocking and horrific. It's also well planned and organized.

The outrage seems to come from atrocious acts that aren't acceptable in society, but in reality, we've not shown ourselves, contemporary or historically, to be any better morally. And that's where the "us and them" really becomes "who's the bigger man?". And just like in real life, the bigger man isn't the one that can piss further or get louder or beat up the other guy, it's the one that admits where he's wrong and tries to show the other side that conflict is not the answer.