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October 21, 2006

absolutely, sort of

Jamison Foser sez [via Atrios]:

If you believe what you hear from prominent conservatives and political reporters, the following things are true:

1) Anytime terrorism is in the news, it plays to the political and electoral benefit of the Republicans.

2) Terrorists who are trying to destroy America are trying to help elect Democrats because they think Democrats are weak. The terrorists are doing so by increasing violence in Iraq and otherwise drawing attention to their existence, as the Osama bin Laden videotape released shortly before the 2004 election.

Those two things are obviously incompatible. The latter is based on the premise that increased news of terrorism benefits Democrats; the former is an explicit statement of the opposite. The two are fundamentally inconsistent. (OK, there is a way the two sentiments could rationally coexist -- but it requires us to believe that The Enemy has reached depths of incompetence previously explored by only Wile E. Coyote. And, in that case, why haven't we been able to defeat them yet? This possibility can be safely dismissed.)

I actually see this a little differently. With the exception of the initial invasion of Afghanistan (sorry friends, but I was on that particular bandwagon), there is very little in the Republican toolkit that doesn't in some way serve as a recruiting or strategic boon to the jihadist movement. These include policies like:

- uncritical support for Israel in general, but most recently during the invasion of Lebanon
- the whole invasion of Iraq
- uncritical (and hypocritical support) of undemocratic states from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan
- gutting the Constitutional rights framework that makes the US unique
- undermining international organizations and relationships
- reliance on a Christian, apocalyptic political vocabulary

The fact of the matter is that terrorists love Republicans. The short-term losses that the jihadist movement incurs as an immediate result of American policy are acceptable to them as long as the US continues to hemorrhage men, treasure and standing.

Posted by ebogjonson in Iraq, politricknal sciences, on October 21, 2006 12:15 PM

Comments

Posted by: belledame222 at November 3, 2006 6:19 PM