t r u t h o u t - Tom Engelhardt | Are We in World War IV?

t r u t h o u t - Tom Engelhardt | Are We in World War IV?:



Here's a good article that calls us back to the original problem: we totally miscalled our "response" to 9/11. People picked up flags and started waving them around, and our Government picked some wars to fight. Remember? "Kick Ass." And only stupid "liberals" thought we were doing the wrong thing. Had we responded to the attacks as if they were want they were, a small, but effective, demonstration of unrest from a small group, enforceable by law, what a different world we'd be in now.

"As the Bush administration and its neocon allies called for a global response that rose to the level of apocalyptic battle, small groups of legal types and liberals called for a response keyed to those 19 men and the dangerous but modest-sized organization behind them. They claimed 'terrorism' was a method of asymmetric warfare, not an enemy; that our actual enemy, while determined, fanatical, and murderous was not the equivalent of a state and that what was at stake was not 'war' at all; so they called, in one fashion or another, for internationally cooperative police work to bring the criminals and murderers to justice and to dismantle their organization or organizations. This approach was instantly and roundly dismissed - trashed, you might say - by the administration and its various acolytes and has now largely fled the national mind."