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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Crusade=Jihad? |
Current rating: 0 |
by A Concerned American
(No verified email address) |
17 Sep 2001
Modified: 19 Sep 2001 |
Open mouth
Insert foot
This would be funny if it were on "Saturday Night Live."
In the real world, we have a President who's the loose cannon on the deck of state. |
President George W. Bush has called on the country to engage in a "crusade" against terror. Even though I am not an expert on Islamic civilization, I have absorbed enough information over the years to realize that this was an extraordinarily clumsy choice of a word to use regarding any US response to the terror attacks of Sept. 11.
Demonstrating once again his limited grasp of foreign affairs in a time that requires the utmost delicacy, Bush has put his foot squarely into his mouth by using such a politically and religiously charged term to describe what is almost certain to be a US military action which may kill thousands of innocent Moslems. Part of the US grand plan, guided by Secretary of State US Army (ret’d) Gen. Colin Powell of Gulf War fame, is another grand alliance like in the Gulf War. It is hoped this will include a number of predominately Muslim states who now have to sell a vision of another Christian Crusade to already skeptical and potentially rebellious publics.
There are few words that Bush could have used to describe US plans that would have been more deeply insulting to Moslems, other than inviting them to all come to his Texas ranch for a pig roast when victory is "won." Powell now will spend the next few weeks explaining as much about how his boss is an uncouth jerk, as he will spend putting together agreements which may ultimately serve to undermine the very regimes the US will seek assistance from, further inflaming public opinion in the Moslem world.
This particular incident indicates once again the limited qualifications of a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth to lead a great nation with world-wide interests. In conditions where a world war could result from strategic or tactical mistakes, we are reminded once again that image is far less important than competency in a president.
Ultimately, the president seeks to invoke a moral high ground in this war, yet he reduces US actions to the level of the terrorists he says he opposes, making his hypocrisy clear to most of the world. The American people are kept in the dark by a compliant media about the profound weakness Bush has now introduced into any joint venture with the US by a Muslim country. Bush has joined in what he condemns, surrendering the moral justification that the dead of New York paid for with their lives in search of the optimal sound bite provided by the historically charged word, crusade.
Even our allies are appalled at any notion of a "crusade" being involved in the coming actions. Many are quickly distancing themselves from becoming directly involved in Bush’s adventure, while they continue to offer notional support in public, more out of sympathy for the grievous loses of Sept. 11, than out of any desire to become involved in the madness of a crusade.
A president who seeks to lead us into an alliance with Moslems to fight a Crusade is one that has, at best, an even weaker grip on reality than he has a grasp of foreign policy. It is also disturbing that Bush doesn’t seem to realize that ultimately the West lost the temporary gains it initially made in the previous Crusades. The domestic fallout from the Crusades is said to have contributed to the decline of feudalism.
Shhhhh! Don’t tell Bush that.
We’ll let the fall of the established order be a surprise. |
Comments
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Good essay, but..... |
by John Wason
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
18 Sep 2001
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....I'd like to know who this "Concerned American" is.
It bugs me that so many of these articles are posted
without the poster (or author) revealing his/her identity. |
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Trying To Distract From Bush's Gaffe |
by A Concerned American
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
18 Sep 2001
|
Bush's handlers ran him over to the neighborhood mosque as soon as they could following Bush's widely reported smartass comment that he was starting a new "crusade." It is interesting that no mention of the "crusade" issue is made in coverage of this event, but it was clearly manipulated to take some of the sting out of the President's disrespectful and juvenile failure to control his mouth. I think that there is hope that the "crusade" remark will be ignored and news of the mosque visit played up internationally, especially in Muslim countries, but it's too late to slam the gate when the horse has already run through it.
Link below is to typical mainstream media coverage which totally ignores the linkage between the asinine crusade comment and the mosque visit, although there is little doubt that the two events are intrinsically linked. As noted in the article, hate crimes are soaring against those perceived to be Muslims. The President bears part of the responsibility for his intemperate comments.
Note to Mr. Wason: I have chosen to remain anonymous to protect other local issues I am involved in from taking a backlash from my stand on the apparent stupidity of the US response to this horrible tragedy. I wish the average US citizen were sophistcated enough to tell the difference, but I'm afraid we are seeing lots of threats already against anyone counseling caution or even questioning whether a "crusade" should take place. |
See also:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010917/pl/attack_bush_muslims_dc_3.html
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And the Guy Actually Majored In History!?! |
by repost by A Concerned American
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
18 Sep 2001
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Maybe the president's excuse was he slept through this particular lecture. Of course, he was never more than a C student anyway, from what I've heard. ACA
The Crusader
Tim Francis-Wright
Bear Left! Extra 17 September 2001
In spite of everything that President Bush had said and done until Sunday, I still had hope that the American response to the World Trade Center and Pentagon would be proportionate, or at least restrained. The breadth of the coalition of countries supporting the United States let me think that the American response might just be less than disastrous. One word out of George Bush's mouth changed my thinking.
At Camp David, on Sunday, President Bush declared that "this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while." The magic word was crusade. One word dredges up centuries of holy wars against Muslims in the Middle East. An ecumenical coalition of countries did not fight in the real Crusades. A few Christian countries did. If President Bush has a new Crusade in mind, the world is in for a lot of pain.
The concept of a crusade comes from the Latin crux, meaning cross, in this case the cross of Western Christianity. Christian armies from Europe sought to wrest control of the Holy Land away from Muslims by establishing Christian states. European Christians regarded Muslims, Jews, and even Orthodox Christians in the Middle East as infidels and devils, and treated them maliciously and savagely.
It is puzzling and shocking that Bush, a history major at Yale, would choose as maladroit a metaphor as the Crusades for the upcoming actions against Osama bin Laden. Of the seven traditional crusades, only the First Crusade, from 1095 to 1099, succeeded in its mission to gain Christian control of Jerusalem. Not only was the success of the First Crusade short-lived, but it encompassed a slaughter of the Jewish and Moslem inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Later Crusades had similarly gruesome ends. In 1204, the Fourth Crusade featured an attack on the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople. The Crusaders sacked the city, killing thousands of inhabitants and destroying countless artifacts. In 1212, most of the children on the Children's Crusade died en route or wound up enslaved.
American Christians should realize why Muslims reacted with dismay to the promise of a crusade against a Muslim country. President Bush might think of a crusade as a throwaway analogy. Muslims, particularly those in the Middle East, know better. We have promised a holy war, and I fear that we might get what we promised. |
See also:
http://www.bear-left.com/original/2001/0917crusade.html
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Ari Apologizes(?) For Bush: "no intended cons |
by A Concerned American
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
19 Sep 2001
|
Speaking in the double-speak that characterizes White House press briefings, Ari Fleischer tried to seem to apologize for his boss' ill-breeding in using the word "crusade" to describe the US response to the terror acts of last week. Somehow, neither the president or his spokesman could quite bring themselves to say the word "sorry," which might have convinced other nations that the president was anything more than regretful about his own stupidity. ACA
Tuesday September 18 3:46 PM ET
White House Apologizes for Word
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush regrets using the word ``crusade,'' with all its historical connotations of religious war, to describe his campaign against terrorists, his spokesman said Tuesday.
Bush only meant to say that his is a ``broad cause'' to stamp out terrorism worldwide, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.
``I think to the degree that that word has any connotations that would upset any of our partners or anybody else in the world, the president would regret if anything like that was conveyed. But the purpose of his conveying it is in the traditional English sense of the word, it's a broad cause,'' said Fleischer.
On Sunday, Bush had told reporters: ``This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while.''
With that comment, he stoked suspicion in some Arab and Muslim quarters where crusade is a loaded term that recalls the Christians' medieval wars against Muslims in the Holy Land.
Bush is trying to rally Arab nations to join an international coalition against the perpetrators of last week's twin terrorist strikes in New York and Washington.
``I think what the president was saying had no intended consequences for anybody, Muslim or otherwise, other than to say that this is a broad cause that he is calling on America and the nations around the world to join,'' Fleischer said. |
See also:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010918/us/attacks_crusade_3.html
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