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Kicking off the weekend flame-fest (sp. U.S. politics)

Question:

I’m not so concerned about what may have been overlooked or omitted or screwed up in the past. What I am concerned about is what are the things that need to be done in this country and worldwide to minimize terrorism dangers in the future. Seems to me that there is a lot of talk but not much of a plan. I get the feeling that our leaders are running scared and installing all kinds of procedures without really convincing the public of the value of these different things. One can liken what we hear out of our government to firing off shots in a crowded room. You know you need to run but what direction. Stan   – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Bush lacks wit to see his folly President out of depth in many crucial areas Friday, May 24th, 2002 William Neville Even by American standards, the last week in Washington has been unusual. It began with the Bush administration being criticized after the release of reports which it had received last July and August — containing warnings or information pertinent to the attacks that occurred in New York and Washington in September. The American media and politicians of both parties asked the inevitable questions: What did Bush know? When did he know it? Could the knowledge, if acted upon, have prevented subsequent events? That flurry has been followed by another arising from statements made in recent days by U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, the director of the FBI, Robert S. Mueller III, and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Cheney warns that another al-Qaida attack is "almost certain (and)… could happen tomorrow, next week or next year." Mueller predicts that suicide bombings, of the sort seen in Israel, are "inevitable" in the U.S. And Rumsfeld observes that "it is only a matter of time before terrorist states armed with weapons of mass destruction develop the capability to deliver those weapons to U.S. cities, giving them the ability to try to hold America hostage to nuclear blackmail." The second flurry may now eclipse the first. In ratcheting up anxiety levels, that may have been its purpose. Though all the administration’s voices speak of inevitability, they all imply that even the inevitable might be avoided if necessary — though unspecified — measures are taken. One shudders at the thought of what those may be, but a permanent state of war may well spawn arguments for creating a Permanent War State — a notion that owes something to both George Orwell and Gore Vidal. It is not hard to imagine what restrictions will masquerade as sacrifices necessary to make America invulnerable. They are not likely to be pretty, however much doublespeak is employed on their behalf. Underlying last week’s accusations and this week’s alarums are some common and quite remarkable notions. First, there is the longstanding belief, shared by much of the U.S. political class and a substantial swath of the public, in American omnipotence. Being all-powerful is linked to being all-knowing and to a kind of secular infallibility in all important matters of judgment. Thus, when the U.S. was unable to impose its will in the early years of the Cold War and when it "lost China" (as though China was America’s to lose), the McCarthy witch-hunts set out to uncover "the enemy within." The disposition to assume that any U.S. failures or setbacks must be the result of conspiracy or neglect — and only rarely of incomprehension of the rest of the world — leads inevitably to opprobrium and abuse being visited on those responsible. The notion that human life is unpredictable, that possibilities and variables are infinite and that, accordingly, the future cannot be anticipated in all of its aspects, does not appear to much shape American public philosophy. Accordingly, one has some sense of the unfairness of it all for President George W. Bush. Yet this sense is fleeting; he was prepared to play this game earlier, by allowing his staff and media friends (Robert Novak being one example) to peddle the idea that U.S. "unreadiness" in September was really the fault of the Clinton administration. If one’s sympathy for Bush is conditioned by that, it is also affected by earlier doubts that, in himself, he possesses very limited analytical skills and, as is often true of such people, is more stubborn than strong. When Bush assembled his administration, he appointed to it some who were strong, some who were experienced, some who were reportedly very intelligent, and a few who were widely respected. Few, if any, possessed all of these qualities; a few others, including Bush himself, seemed not to possess any of them. Granted that after Sept. 11, his performance won high approval ratings from the American public — but appealing to patriotism, having good speech writers and concerted effort by a united administration counted for much. When, however, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict eclipsed the "war against terror," Bush seemed increasingly impotent. American commentators, both friendly and less so, seem agreed that over the Middle East, Bush’s senior advisers are divided and at odds over what should be done. The clear impression has been that, with divided counsels in the White House and left largely to his own devices, Bush quickly demonstrated how much he was out of his depth. Against this backdrop, Bush has increasingly displayed an inability to follow his own agenda in other areas. Though claiming to be a free trader he has shown, on softwood lumber and agricultural subsidies, a ready willingness to succumb to protectionist interests in the U.S. On agriculture, he has invoked national self-sufficiency — that is, the national interest — as justification for restraint of trade. He seems to believe that beggaring thy neighbour can be reconciled with free trade, and that U.S. trading partners are too dim to realize that he is proposing they lower their trade barriers while the U.S. be allowed to cherry-pick when it comes to reciprocity. Canada’s trade minister has been commendably frank in saying that Bush lacks "the nerve" to fight protectionist politicians in the U.S. But for diplomatic niceties, Pierre Pettigrew might also have made the further point that Bush also lacks the wit to see how foolish and hypocritical he appears. Maybe, on reflection, he really was too obtuse to understand those reports last summer.

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