How long will the war on terror last? Decades, most people assume. After all, the threat of Sept. 11-style attacks persists, and as long as it does, America will work mightily to prevent them. But the “war on terror” — as a phrase — could be nearing its final days. When the Bush administration goes, it may, too.
Start with the word “war.” From the beginning it was designed to contrast with crime, which many Republicans said had been the Clinton administration’s framework for fighting al-Qaeda. Democrats allegedly saw anti-terrorism as police work. The Bush administration, by contrast, would unleash the military. Lurking behind this dichotomy was the assumption that jihadist terrorists were mainly creatures of their state sponsors. If the real threat was not terrorist networks but governments, then of course war, rather than crime, was the correct prism.
That’s Peter Beinart of the WaPo. Apparently, he’s still trying to mislabel the situation in Iraq, just like a good little Liberal should. The fact of the matter is that Iraq of itself was never powerful enough to create any terrorism on its own. And we even said that going in! Yes, certainly, Iraq was charged at the time with having weapons of mass destruction. Yes, subsequent to the invasion they have not been found. However we are still dealing with a question of what that long line of trucks headed for Syria was all about, the day before we invited. Nobody’s ever answered that one to anyone’s satisfaction who’s taking the threat seriously.
The issue, if he’d bother to read his own papers archives, has always been whether or not Iraq was the willing tool of other governments, such as Syria and certain governmental factions in Iran, and Pakistan.
Tags: BitsBlog, Democrats, WHAT biased press?
