Kevin your post is extremely insightful and you've captured difficult nuances. At the risk of splitting hairs, however, I still think that there are better words than "coward" to identify what you describe.
The people you describe are "dupes, sheep, and patsies" and, of course, people like that are not hard to find. Most people can be easily led but most people can't be easily led to their own deaths. It's the strength of the ideas that draw them that are the danger.
We should, of course, be talking about the powerful ideas that move them and we should be according the charismatic and dedicated men that lead them their due. Only through countering those ideas and undercutting those men can we expect to see a sea change in the wave of terrorism that is building in the world. In some instances that will mean debunking myths, and in some instances that will mean addressing valid grievances. It will not, however, be solved by the exercise of conventional military might in the Muslim world, or by otherwise acting in ways that create more terrorists and terrorist supporters at a faster pace than we can kill or imprison them.
That's what the "simple solution-kill them" Bush people and extreme right wing thinkers can't fathom. For them it's enough to label the enemy as evil, cowardly and ready to run and hide. The truth is that these enemies are dedicated believers who use their world view, their religious faith and their suffering to strengthen their resolve.
People who are REALLY prepared to die cannot be cowed into inaction by threats of force. Their lifeblood is the support of the populations that shelter them and it's those populations that we must appeal to. In the case of Bush, he has done more to create popular support for terrorism in the Muslim world than I would have thought remotely possible two years ago when even the Muslim nations were generally shocked and sympathetic to our great tragedy. In that sense he is truly an overachiever. |
