2.18.2005
The Thinker (LATimes.com)
President Bush's thought appears to be evolving. Who knows where this may lead?
By Michael Kinsley
February 6, 2005
The strangest aspect of President Bush's new War on Tyranny is the connection he draws between tyranny and terrorism. It's not the connection you would suspect, or the one Bush was making during his first term. When Saddam Hussein was still in charge of Iraq, it was enough to say that bad guys are bad guys. A sadistic dictator is just the type of person who would also harbor terrorists and stockpile weapons of mass destruction.
But now Bush says that terrorists are actually the victims of tyranny. In his inaugural, this seemed like a bit of transitory, use-once-and-discard hifalutinism. But Bush returned to the theme in his State of the Union on Wednesday. "In the long term," he said, "the peace we seek will only be achieved by eliminating the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder. If whole regions of the world remain in despair and grow in hatred, they will be the recruiting grounds for terror, and that terror will stalk America."
The anarchist Emma Goldman said much the same thing in a 1917 essay, "The Psychology of Political Violence." It is "the despair millions of people are daily made to endure" that drives some of them to acts of terror. "Can one question the tremendous, revolutionizing effect on human character exerted by great social iniquities?" She quotes a pamphlet from British-ruled India: "Terrorism … is inevitable as long as tyranny continues, for it is not the terrorists that are to be blamed, but the tyrants who are responsible for it."
Bush does not say that tyranny excuses terrorism. But he does say that tyranny explains terrorism. This is new. One of Bush's big themes in the months after Sept. 11 was that terrorism is "evil," pure and simple. Former Commissioner of Virtue William Bennett ground out a quickie bestseller on this theme, criticizing efforts to understand why someone might become a suicide bomber as a refusal to look evil in the face.
Conservative thought has long rated the notion of "root causes" — explaining antisocial behavior as a consequence of social conditions — as a major heresy. Neoconservatives have especially enjoyed burning witches over this doctrinal deviation. This makes it especially remarkable that a president thought to be in the thrall of neocons should sink so eloquently into doctrinal error.
(More ... The Thinker) ¶ 22:51
By Michael Kinsley
February 6, 2005
The strangest aspect of President Bush's new War on Tyranny is the connection he draws between tyranny and terrorism. It's not the connection you would suspect, or the one Bush was making during his first term. When Saddam Hussein was still in charge of Iraq, it was enough to say that bad guys are bad guys. A sadistic dictator is just the type of person who would also harbor terrorists and stockpile weapons of mass destruction.
But now Bush says that terrorists are actually the victims of tyranny. In his inaugural, this seemed like a bit of transitory, use-once-and-discard hifalutinism. But Bush returned to the theme in his State of the Union on Wednesday. "In the long term," he said, "the peace we seek will only be achieved by eliminating the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder. If whole regions of the world remain in despair and grow in hatred, they will be the recruiting grounds for terror, and that terror will stalk America."
The anarchist Emma Goldman said much the same thing in a 1917 essay, "The Psychology of Political Violence." It is "the despair millions of people are daily made to endure" that drives some of them to acts of terror. "Can one question the tremendous, revolutionizing effect on human character exerted by great social iniquities?" She quotes a pamphlet from British-ruled India: "Terrorism … is inevitable as long as tyranny continues, for it is not the terrorists that are to be blamed, but the tyrants who are responsible for it."
Bush does not say that tyranny excuses terrorism. But he does say that tyranny explains terrorism. This is new. One of Bush's big themes in the months after Sept. 11 was that terrorism is "evil," pure and simple. Former Commissioner of Virtue William Bennett ground out a quickie bestseller on this theme, criticizing efforts to understand why someone might become a suicide bomber as a refusal to look evil in the face.
Conservative thought has long rated the notion of "root causes" — explaining antisocial behavior as a consequence of social conditions — as a major heresy. Neoconservatives have especially enjoyed burning witches over this doctrinal deviation. This makes it especially remarkable that a president thought to be in the thrall of neocons should sink so eloquently into doctrinal error.
(More ... The Thinker) ¶ 22:51
