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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (32708)	6/20/2002 3:03:14 AM
From: tekboy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Bush has already got in enough trouble with his "axis of evil" speech. If he got away from talking about "Terrorists" he would really catch hell....Nice exposition for the Chattering Classes, but does not correspond to reality. I'm not sure I understand your criticism. The piece makes two basic points, as you say--that it's far more difficult to define "terrorism" than people think, and that even when one can, it's not necessarily the most important aspect of the situation from the perspective of foreign policy. So rather than continuing to dig itself into a hole with misguided rhetoric, the author concludes, the Bush administration should just call a spade a spade, admitting that what drives our policy is American national interests rather than an opposition to "terrorism" per se. You say Bush got into a lot of trouble for the "axis of evil" speech, and I agree. But that supports the author's point rather than undermining it. The phrase got Bush into trouble because it was so obviously disconnected from reality that people suspected something fishy was going on: the "axis" states were neither linked to each other nor to the 9/11 attacks; they had little in common; and there were a number of other, perhaps equally "evil" states that were not mentioned. Bush thus seemed to be using fancy emotive language not to describe the world or even his policies (since there was no plan to treat all three states alike), but rather simply to cloak idiosyncratic hardline positions in moral clothing. He seemed, in short, to be either a fool (if he meant what he said) or a hypocrite (if he didn't). That is precisely the charge Byford levies against the "war on terrorism" rhetoric--that it doesn't correspond to what the administration is actually doing or even what it should do, so continuing to mouth it leaves the administration wide open to charges of idiocy (if it acts on it consistently) or hypocrisy (if it doesn't). So the same people who disliked the "axis of evil" language should dislike the "war on terrorism" language. Perhaps you mean that the administration has used the latter so much that backing away from it at this point would be difficult politically. But while it may be true that dropping it might cause the administration political damage with some rightwing bloggers, continuing to use it will cause even greater damage to its credibility with everyone else. tb@pilpul.com