While it may be fairly obvious that terrorism is not a means used to counteract an enemy on a tangible basis - such as maybe a War on Terror might seek to enagage in - it seems that Bush has of course convinced faaar too many people that a victory over terrorism is a possibilty with Rummy's "Smart" "Caring" bombs when in reality, by definition almost, this is an impossibility.
From websters:
Main Entry: ter?ror?ism
1 : the unlawful use or threat of violence esp. against the state or the public as a politically motivated means of attack or coercion.
The unlawful use or threat of violence. I read a great quote about how large a farce it is that Bush even imagines - though I think he's smarter than this and of course is only using it as a means to divert the American publics attention elsewhere - that terrorism might be defeated by military means, and it is something along the lines of combating an enemy in the dark who has knives for hands and who grows larger and stronger with each swing you take at it.
Are Arabs going to see the occupations of Iraq, Afganistan and Palestine as means to their future freedoms? No, theyre not. Plain as day as it may seem to most of us, Americans by and large are baffled that these people might view American intervention negatively - especially when they see those tanks lining up to demolish their houses in Gaza or a group of Marines with their naked, arrested cousin on the evening Al Jazeera coverage. In the eyes of countless civilians in the Arab world, America here is viewed as tyrant, occupyer, and in the wrong, absolutely. But these wrongs also come with the aid of the worlds largest military and one of the longest histories of oppressive behavior.
How is one supposed to combat such an enemy, the Arab thinks. And of course the answer is terrorism. The shoot first and ask questions later scheme Bush has put into use has only strengthened the will of the terrorists and convinced them that they are indeed fighting an enemy in a combat that may even deserve their death.
One mans terrorist is another mans patriot, remember.
80% of the world outside of America considers George W Bush to be the greatest current threat to peace. More than Kim Jong Il. More than Saddaam Hussein even supposedly was. He is a manace, and the lives lost as a result of his first term I suspect will pale in insignificance to those that will fall if he is granted - by the Supreme Court even - a second term where he faces no accountability through the hopes of another term. If he takes office again, it will be upon a mountain of deceased innocents who have still not been given an answer, and this blood will be on the hands of Americans who let it happen. History will tell this story if no one does now, and rest assured, those Germans who believed what Hitler said early on probably dont look at him as fondly anymore.