Re: bush's racial slur

On Sat, Jan 12, 2002 at 10:37:51PM -0500, shadowman-IfOL7F/[email protected] muttered something about:

> I agree with Kendall.  Bush's remark is a racial slur and
> think he has clearly illustrated the point.  He has defended his
> position with logic while others have attacked HIM and NOT his position.

To be clear: the piece was co-authored (with Niel Bornstein contributing
very relevant research on the Times/Safire coverage of the issue earlier
this fall) with Bijan; while we often collaborate on most MF stuff, this one
was specifically the result of some IRC conversations we were having on
Thursday.

[stuff snipped]

> Ultimately, the conflict in Afghanistan IS a "conflict of civilizations".
> No one seems willing to admit that.  We make it appear that it isn't by
> supporting Northern Alliance troops esssentially getting them to do our
> work for us.  I admit that we needed their intelligence on the Taliban and
> the terrain to find our way around, but look how long it took for us to
> finally put troops on the ground.

For the record: I don't buy the conflict of civilizations thesis -- at
least, not Samuel Huntington's version of it, which is the dominant one
post-911. And I don't buy it for mostly straight Edward Said reasons, which
is to say, Huntington's thesis is one of those grand historical sweep things
that sounds plausible, if it ever does, until you start trying to make one
or another of the relevant facts fit within it. 

But, more importantly, one of the post-911 MF pieces I did was on the
illegality of our war on Afghanistan, one which I continue to oppose. Maybe
I'm stupid, but, as I've only half-joked on this list before, I missed the
memo that proved that al Qaeda and the Taliban were so co-equal that
deposing the one meant attacking the other. 

To say nothing of two further very clearly difficulties the U.S. has
ignored: 1) starving and bombing the primary victims of the Taliban is
deeply problematic; 2) whatever a person might have done -- with or without
CIA backing and support -- in Afghanistan during the Soviet war there to
have landed on Osama bin Laden's mailing list (for that is all "al Qaeda"
is, in toto), the U.S.'s only justification, *in the absence of specific
evidence, even if only strongly circumstantial, of guilt*, for the U.S. to
attack, imprison, try-by-tribunal, or execute a so-called member of al Qaeda
is guilt by association, and that's no justification at all.

That is, imagine you were fighting with the CIA, Afghans, and bin Laden to
oust the USSR from Afghanistan, and your name ended up in bin Laden's
database. Then imagine you went home to the Sudan or Yemem to resume your
life as a tailor or farmer or shoemaker. You occasionally attend political
meetings, and at some of these, very anti-American sentiments are expressed,
sentiments you share, but ones you've never acted on. And that's the sum
total of what you've done since leaving Afghanistan; and yet now the US
gov't wants to try you as a terrorist. This is *insane* and probably far
more likely than we realize. There is simply no public evidence (I very much
doubt there is any private evidence, nor *could there be*) that all "members
of al Qaeda" are or have aided or abetted terrorists. And yet the policy of
the U.S. gov't is to see every person in bin Laden's database, and every
person who's "aided or abetted" any of those persons, either killed or
imprisoned.

[more snippage]

> Apropos Bush's racial slur:  If I thought that I had offended the
> population of a country who hung their asses out to help us defeat
> al-Qaeda, I would apologize most unreservedly. (unless I really didn't
> care what they thought which is what got us into this in the first place).

To say nothing of the persons whom you've slandered by using a racial slur
who are citizens of the country of which you are highest elected official,
some or many of whom may well have voted for you.

Kendall