President Bush Tries Again To Communicate

"President Bush on Tuesday said, "Five years after our nation was attacked, the terrorist danger remains. We're a nation at war -- and America and her allies are fighting this war with relentless determination across the world."

AP Photo




The problem is that the President still doesn't know who the enemy is. You can read his "Strategy for Combating Terrorism" here. The section most interesting to me is Section III, Today's Terrorist Enemy,where he defines the enemy. Here's a few quotes from that Section:

"Today, the principal terrorist enemy confronting the United States is a transnational movement of extremist organizations, networks, and individuals and their state and non-state supporters which have in common that they exploit Islam and use terrorism for ideological ends."

"Our terrorist enemies exploit Islam to serve a violent political vision. Fueled by a radical ideology and a false belief that the United States is the cause of most problems affecting Muslims today, our enemies seek to expel Western power and influence from the Muslim world and establish regimes that rule according to a violent and intolerant distortion of Islam."

"The terrorists distort the idea of jihad into a call for violence and murder against those they regard as apostates or unbelievers, including all those who disagree with them."

... the Section goes on like this. It's obvious to me that the President's intention in this section was not to truly define the enemy, but to say that Islam is not the enemy. This is called APPEASEMENT! The President lists all manner of threats and atrocities committed by the Terrorists, in this section - all of them can be found in the Koran. His speech and this document is simply a "PC piece".

... the Enemy IS Islam! He still DOES NOT GET IT!

Wednesday afternoon update: NRO's Andrew McCarthy is a little kinder, but also has concerns.

... he says; in part:

"To be sure, there is still reason to be concerned that the administration is underestimating the degree of support our enemies enjoy in Islamic countries — and overestimating how “radical” the radicals really are. Thus, the president insists they are driven by a “perverted vision of Islam that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and justifies the murder of innocent men, women and children in the pursuit of political power.” I respectfully suggest that he is seeing the Islam he wants to see, not the one that is. Islam is intolerant."