From Juan Cole’s Informed Comment blog comes this:
A sound bite from President Bush on Monday strikes me as emblematic of the country’s current crisis. He said,
“It is a ridiculous notion to assert that, because the United States is on the offensive, more people want to hurt us,” he said. “We’re on the offensive because people do want to hurt us.”
I always surprise myself that I continue to be further surprised by the sheer thickness of what passes for the leadership of the most mighty and powerful nation on this planet, which has obvious consequences for the rest of the planet.
And, for the record, I don’t know why the other 5.8 billion-plus people keep on taking this crap.
The United States has often been on the offensive, in many parts of the world, for the past fifty years. This and not just a rabid psychotic desire to see communism or Islam or some other political, religious or econmomic philosophy, is one of the core root causes of terrorism. Why is that so difficult for so many people here in North America to understand ?
The interventions and meddlings of the United States have yes, sometimes been to uphold principles of freedom and democracy. But more often than not these adventures have been as much or more motivated by the desire for strategic control of regimes friendly to the corporate interest of American multinationals, or (of course) oil.
Why would anyone in some of the other parts of the world object to that ? Gee, I dunno.
Simple is as simple thinks … and simpletons everytwhere can rejoice that their club leader is at the helm these days.
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