The Framework Lives On
(Photo is from Fox News)
I made the optimistic comment in my last post that President Bush’s actions leading up to the State of the Union suggested he might be ready to make a real course correction. And while it’s true his policy has changed in some regard, he seems to continue to promote the same vision of the world that got us into this mess. And that vision is one that emphasizes fear without hope, enemies without friends. The clip below from the State of the Union should illustrate what I mean:
“The evil that inspired and rejoiced in 9/11 is still at work in the world. And so long as that is the case, America is still a Nation at war. In the minds of the terrorists, this war began well before Sept. 11, and will not end until their radical vision is fulfilled. And these past 5 years have given us a much clearer view of the nature of this enemy. Al Qaeda and its followers are Sunni extremists, possessed by hatred and commanded by a harsh and narrow ideology. Take almost any principle of civilization, and their goal is the opposite. They preach with threats … instruct with bullets and bombs … and promise paradise for the murder of the innocent. Our enemies are quite explicit about their intentions. They want to overthrow moderate governments and establish safe havens from which to plan and carry out new attacks on our country. By killing and terrorizing Americans, they want to force our country to retreat from the world and abandon the cause of liberty. They would then be free to impose their will and spread their totalitarian ideology. Listen to this warning from the late terrorist Zarqawi: ‘We will sacrifice our blood and bodies to put an end to your dreams, and what is coming is even worse.’ And Usama bin Laden declared: ‘Death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers among us.’ ”
Bush goes into depth about all of this evil and does not tell Americans anything about the overwhelming majority of people in the Arab and Muslim world who reject this ideology and who we need to engage to build a better, safer world. Even as some policies are changing and the administration appears to be indirectly engaging Iran and Syria, the black-and-white, good-versus-evil frame of dividing up whole sections of our world continues.
This is unfortunate because as I wrote in a recent column for the Stanley Foundation’s Think news magazine: “Across America, people are speaking and what they are saying is that they want a new direction for US foreign policy. Over the past three months, our organization has coordinated more than 300 town hall meetings on the US role in the world in cities from El Paso, Texas, to Madison, Wisconsin. Overwhelmingly, the people who spoke at these meetings said the United States needs to work more with other countries and the United Nations to fight global disease and poverty, invest in alternative energy, and stop genocide and violent conflict… The people at our events generally said they were tired of a foreign policy that five years after 9/11 had made us less safe and more isolated from our allies than ever before. They wanted to get beyond a simplistic black-and-white discussion about terror to a more contextualized discussion about America’s leadership in our interconnected world. In the words of one young participant, Kareem Elbayar, “It is time our leaders stop treating us like children; it is time to stop calling different fights in different countries against different enemies by the same name…. Our fight—and it is one that we can and must win—is a battle against poverty, against lack of education, and against depravation of civil and political rights…. It is time again for America to embrace the moral high ground.’ “
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