Fri 1 Jul 2005
There has been a new theory coming from the White House recently that has me a little concerned. In short the theory is that if we don’t stop terrorism overseas (namely in Iraq) the terrorists will come over here and terrorize us here. President Bush said in his speech to the nation,
“It would also give great encouragement to radical Islamic extremists that are certainly present in many parts of the Middle East. Then a U.S. failure would eventually lead to terrorism coming to the United States.”
Am I the only one who thinks this is almost exactly the same as the domino theory first put forth by President Eisenhower in 1954?
For those of you who do not remember what the domino theory was here is a short recap. It was proposed in a speech by Eisenhower in April 7, 1954 in regards to Communist expansion into Indochina, specifically into China and Korea. The thought was that if the U.S. didn’t fight to contain every instance of Communist expansion over there, then the countries of that region would fall in quick succession as the newly Communist country spread Communism to another country and another. The height of this theory saw the U.S. locked in the bloody war in Vietnam to try and keep it from setting off this supposed string of dominos. After we pulled out of Vietnam and this didn’t happen people soon realized that the domino theory was nothing more than propaganda and scare tactic used to justify unnecessary military action.
Today the threat isn’t Communism it is terrorism, but the theory proposed by Bush is the same. If we don’t stop them in Iraq they will come over here and kill Americans! Well here is the problem I see in his logic. Iraq was not one of the 45 countries al Qaeda had operations in prior to our invasion. Yet now they are the main supporters of the insurgency in Iraq. So, in short, we actually opened the door to them in Iraq by invading. As a bonus they even get to do exactly what they want to do. They are killing American soldiers, just without having to travel far.
Another interesting point is that the way Bush is fighting the war on terror is as if he can turn the Domino Theory on the terrorists. That if we can create a Democracy in the Middle East the other countries in that region will look onto the new and improved Democratic Iraq and suddenly all the countries will decide to switch peacefully over to Democracies that have parades for America in their streets. For some reason I just don’t see this happening. Besides it isn’t just the countries that harbor terrorists but also the terrorists themselves. A Democracy won’t get rid of terrorists or protect our citizens. Just look at Israel or our own Ted Kaczynski or Timothy McVeigh.
I say don’t fall for the president’s scare tactics! Refute his illogical theories on fighting terror! The polls already show that the American people don’t believe in the other reasons Bush has given for his war. Don’t let him scare you into believing he is right either.
July 1st, 2005 at 12:54 pm
I prefer to use indictments and therapy to fight terror. Rove is right. I know, the evidence we would need for prosecutions (and evidence in general) isn’t popular these days. I even recall the Taliban’s demand for the US to provide evidence of Bin Laden’s involvement in 9-11 before they would be willing to turn him over. I don’t know if they would have turned him over even if we did have evidence. Maybe they would have. But I don’t think we had any evidence. But we had our Goldstein, plastered on our TV screens during the 9-11 coverage (also without evidence), and we weren’t going to let facts get in the way of a potentially profitable and power-boosting annexation.
What I found ridiculous from day 1 of this whole war on terror scheme was how we believed attacking and invading nations could make any difference in preventing terrorism. When you define “terrorism” as the Administration does, that is, the non-governmental use of violence, then any resistance group opposed to a government can fall into the category of terrorist (for example, the FARC), even if they have a powerful mandate from the population. Thus, when we take over a nation, anyone that attacks us is a terrorist… even though the Taliban was prior to our invasion a government engaged in traditional warfare with the US, now their activities are terrorist activities as opposed to the extension of the war.
And just like the cold war, we apply the label “terrorist” or “harboring” to nations that are not, i.e., Iraq. In the Cold War, we called any number of left-wing movements “communist” when they clearly were not so.