TW: Am going to delve into my own archives of emails from the past couple of years, pre-blog and post some of my own thoughts. First topic, the misuse of "terror and terrorism". It is particularly a propos given the Republicans (unsuccessful thankfully) effort to tar Obama with the "terrorist" label through his tenuous association with Bill Ayers.
The word terror/terrorist has always been used for decades too broadly by those seeking to frame their enemies. It was used by the US to describe the Viet Cong. It was used by the British to describe the original Israelis, now it is used by the Israelis to describe the Palestinians and the Palestinians to describe the Israelis. There are many flavors of enemies, however, in American minds “terrorist” post 9/11 has come to mean a particularly horrible type of individual. The Bush administration has used this post 9/11 meaning of terrorist very frequently and very broadly. The primary manifestation was the bonding of Al-Queda initially to Saddam Hussein and then to the “insurgents”, this led to ineffective policy and what is generally now considered a morass.
We have not yet come up with a good way to define and frame properly the threat posed by those radical Islamic groups who seek to cause great harm to Western liberal democracy. I believe radical Islam is actually a great threat, although Al-Queda is but one branch of this threat. The antidote will require sophisticated, subtle and well executed diplomacy and military policy. The blunt use of force applied in largely unilateral manner based upon false predicates exemplified by the Bush Iraq policy does not meet the required standards.
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