President Bush--Speaking on 9/11/06
Bill Long 9/11/06
On May 13, 1940, during the darkest days of WWII, Sir Winston Churchill addressed the House of Commons for the first time as Prime Minister. London had suffered repeated bombings; supplies of necessites were low; the steely resolve of the sceptered isle was in the balance. In that situation, Churchill said:
"I say to the House as I say to ministers who have joined this government, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs--Victory in spite of all terrors--Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival."
In language that echoed Churchill's words of 66 years ago, but in words not so eloquent or well-spoken, US President George Bush tonight spoke of a long struggle against a monstrous tyranny that would be the defining struggle of the 21st century. Churchill spoke of the the long struggle, as did Bush; of the need of victory, as did Bush; of the reality that victory was the only possible outcome, as did Bush.
As I was musing on the two speeches of these leaders of the free world, several thoughts struck me. First, I realized that Churchill didn't have to be precise in defining victory because everyone knew what victory would look like--the elimination of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. But George Bush needs to be specific because the "enemy" he wants us to hate is an amorphous group whose name changes about every week. It can be "radical Islam," or "international terrorists," or "repressive regimes" or "extremists." But with each designation thrown out to us the actual shape of the "enemy" becomes more protean. Second, I realized that both leaders, Churchill and Bush, staked their political future on the justness and rightness of their cause. Finally, however, I realized that the people of England actually believed Winston Churchill and thus would follow him to death to defend their way of life but, in fact, most people don't believe President Bush anymore when he speaks.
In other words, the President is trying to persuade Americans that we are at war when very few of us live as if we are at war; the President is trying to stoke fear of the radical Muslims who hate us and our way of life while most of us don't feel hatred towards Islam or fear of Muslims; the President is trying to emphasize that Iraq is the theater where democracy will fan out across the Middle East while most of us believe that the only thing that has been fanned in Iraq in the last three years is sectarian rivalry between Shia and Sunni Muslims. Finally, the President is trying to tell us that victory is our goal while most of us are wondering what victory would look like if and when it came. In short, the President, who has identified himself so thoroughly with the issue of the Global War on Terrorism ("GWOT"), has fully shown his hand. His presidency is about the war on terrorism, and he really has very little else to say. It would seem that even Mr. Bush's supporters in the War on Terrorism might be justified in asking Mr. Bush for some specifics on how Iraq is adjusting to democratic modes of thought at this point or how we even ought to measure success in this GWOT. At this point, however, all we have are hackneyed phrases. My sense is that American now wants more than hackneyed phrases when so many American lives and American dollars are at stake. Don't you?
Things that Ring Hollow
But I noted two things that struck such discordant notes in Mr. Bush's speech tonight that I just don't know how he could have said them with a straight face. I don't have all the precise words, but I have the "drift.
1. He made a statement decrying the values of the extremists or Muslim radicals. He said that they are, unlike us, more interested in oil revenues than in freedom. When he said that line I hesitated for a moment. Who is he describing? I wondered. He might be describing some people in the Middle East, but I sort of thought immediately about Americans, for some reason. Let me be clear for a moment. We all love our freedoms or, put differently, we love the word freedom, but we cannot separate the concept of freedom from our gas-guzzling autos. Ask ten people from America what freedom means, and most, I predict, will speak of it in terms of the mobility that we enjoy. We are the greatest coveters of oil in the world. This was the first time I have ever heard the "Radical Muslims" or "Extremists" described as being more interested in oil revenues than in freedom. It will always sound hollow to me to hear a Texas oil man say that others should be condemned for loving oil revenues.
2. He described practices of radical Islam (he doesn't use the label "fundamentalist Islam," possibly so as not to offend or confuse some of his fundamentalist Christian base) in these words: "where women are prisoners in their homes, men are beaten for missing prayer meetings..." In other words, he tried to appeal to religious and social intolerance as hallmarks of these radical or extreme or terrorist Muslims. But let's examine the nature of religious intolerance in the United States for a moment and see where it rests. My point will be that it rests primarily on the groups that President Bush wants to have in his political corner.
Most conservative Protestant denominations, as well as the Roman Catholic Church, do not permit women to be ordained to pastoral positions. Some conservative Protestant bodies might allow women to be ordained but only if they are under the "authority" of their husbands or if they work with other women or children only. Economic necessity has driven many conservative Christian women out of the home and into the national economy, but the model held out to girls/women even 20 years ago in conservative circles was that they should be "stay at home" moms. Radical feminists would have called these women "prisoners in their own homes." That the President is decrying women in another culture for having to stay at home when his base in this country up until a few years ago touted "stay at home moms" as the Christian idea seems to be ironic at best and hypocritical at worst.
Then there is the reference to men beaten for missing prayer meetings. Granted, I know of no one who beats you up for missing church in our culture, but I do know plenty of conservative Christians who will, at the drop of a hat, declare millions of other professing Christians to be "non-Christians" because these other people do not accept Christianity as the conservatives do. In other words, President Bush's religious base is full of people who do the equivalent of beat you for not attending prayer meetings; only they do something worse--they consign you to their version of Hell.
Conclusion
Thus, the President has put all his chips on this roll of the dice--the War on Terrorism. He may still convince nearly a majority of Americans that such a war exists and can be won. But the descriptions he gives of the culture we are supposed to hate simply have to be cleaned up by his speech writers. For, if we really listened closely, he might give the impression that he is expressing hatred for some people who look pretty much like him, or at least his most ardent supporters.
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