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EDITORIAL Leading us to a war with no end
In his state of the union speech
last week, the president of the United States placed the most powerful country
in the world on a war footing that may, quite literally, never end. Evil
is real, the president revealed, and it must be opposed.
So long as training camps operate, so long as nations harbor
terrorists, freedom is at risk and America and our allies must not, and will
not, allow it, said President Bush. Not since John F. Kennedy called on
his countrymen to pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship,
support any friend, oppose any foe has presidential rhetoric reached so
high, and fallen so short. The logic of Kennedys rhetoric led to the
Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam. The logic of Bushs rhetoric leads us to
where?
Said Bush, I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I
will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of
America will not permit the worlds most dangerous regimes to threaten us
with the worlds most destructive weapons. North Korea (population
22 million), Iran (66 million), and Iraq (23 million) top the list. Our
war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun, warned the president.
Previously, post-Sept. 11, the president told us when the war on
terror would conclude: It will not end until every terrorist group of
global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated. For a war to be just,
there must be a reasonable prospect of victory. An end. What we are doing
has an indefinite end, CIA national intelligence officer Paul Pillar told
the Jan. 26 National Journal. This global war on terrorism cannot be
won and should not be fought, certainly not with the methods hinted
at by George W. Bush Jan. 30.
What is at stake here? It seems probable that a democracy
cannot survive and flourish in a permanent state of emergency, write the
editors of First Things. How right they are. But thats where the
president has now placed us: in an indefinite, perhaps
permanent, state of emergency.
Domestically, our war footing will inevitably result in less
freedom. That is what wars do on the home front.
And if, as Bush contends, no price is too high to assure military
superiority, our war footing will bankrupt the country. So, were on a war
footing. And 80 percent of Americans are behind this version of flag-waving,
even as fewer and fewer cars are still flying one. Its national unity,
said the president. He hopes.
Meanwhile, can we ever as a culture imagine ourselves united and
purposeful without a war?
National Catholic Reporter, February 8,
2002
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