Bush/Hughes: A Kinder, Gentler "War on Terror?"

...a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history.

In other words, Kerry was proposing that we use our brains, not just our brawn, in combatting terrorism; this was a concept that was apparently too much for the trigger-happy, testosterone-overloaded Bush Administration to handle.  But wait, what do we have now?  That's right, more than two years after we invaded Iraq, and nearly four years since 9/11, the Bush Administration apparently has done what they accused John Kerry of doing - flip flopped!  Now that the Presidential election is over, they apparently have decided that a more "sensitive" war on terror might not be such a bad idea after all.  Actually, it's not even a "war on terror" anymore, but a "global struggle against violent extremism".

Has the Bush Administration suddenly realized that the Democrats were right all along about fighting a multi-pronged, well-thought-out, strategically sophisticated war (like World War II), not just a "bomb 'em all to hell" strategy?  It sure sounds like it, at least when you listen to President Bush's close friend and advisor, Karen Hughes. Here are Hughes' own words, from her Senate confirmation testimony for the new post of "Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs:"

I believe there is no more important challenge for our future than the urgent need to foster greater understanding, more respect and a sense of common interests and common ideals among Americans and people of different countries, cultures and faiths throughout the world...I am mindful that before we seek to be understood, we must first work to understand.

[...]

If I had the opportunity to say just one thing to people throughout the world, it would be: I am eager to listen. I want to learn more about you and your lives, what you believe, what you fear, what you dream, what you value most.

[...]

I will be guided by four strategic pillars that I call the four "E?s": engagement, exchanges, education and empowerment.

Just this Tuesday, Hughes was confirmed to her new post with almost no public notice whatsoever.  As Anne Applebaum writes in the Washington Post:

And thus with no discussion and no debate, Hughes takes over the least noticed, least respected and possibly most important job in the State Department....In plain English, her job is to fight anti-Americanism, promote American culture and above all to do intellectual battle with the ideology of radical Islam, a set of beliefs so powerful that they can persuade middle-class, second-generation British Muslims to blow themselves up on buses and trains.

Let me make myself clear.  I support what Karen Hughes said this week, just as I supported John Kerry when he talked of fighting "a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror."  My problem here is simply with the incredible, breathtaking, jaw-dropping hypocrisy of the Bush Administration, which just spent most of the past four years lambasting as traitors anyone who dared express the sentiments that Kerry and Hughes have expressed.  Where, I ask, are the cries of outrage from right-wing blogs, pundits, and Congressmen about Hughes' words?  Isn't she saying exactly the same thing as John Kerry did?  But all we hear is a deafening silence.  Amazing.

On the other hand, perhaps it's not so amazing after all, considering that the Bush Administration's military-only "war on terror" is not only failing to win the "war," it's also destroying our military in the process.  Aside from the nearly 1,800 Americans killed in Iraq, the nearly 13,000 wounded, and the army's failure to meet its recruitment targets, military morale apparently is plummeting as well.  Recently, in an article entitled, "U.S. troops wonder: Is there a home front?," Thom Shanker of the New York Times wrote:

The Bush administration's rallying call that America is a nation at war is increasingly ringing hollow to men and women in uniform, who argue in frustration that America is not a nation at war, but a nation with only its military at war.

Shanker then quoted an officer, "back from a yearlong tour in Iraq," as saying, "Nobody in America is asked to sacrifice, except us."  Also quoted in Shanker's article was Major General Robert Scales, Jr, who said, "Despite the enormous impact of Sept. 11, it hasn't really translated into a national movement toward fighting the war on terrorism. It's almost as if the politicians want to be able to declare war and, at the same time, maintain a sense of normalcy."

Maybe George W. Bush and Karen Hughes can fix all this by re-branding their "war" as a "struggle," by focusing on the alliterative four "E?s," and by learning more about peoples' lives, hopes, fears and dreams.  Personally, I strongly hope they succeed in their "kinder, gentler" war on terror.  But, just for once, couldn't they admit that they were over the top and completely out of line when they questioned Democrats' patriotism for talking about something very similar to what they now are gearing up to do now?  I know, I know, don't hold your breath.

Comments