Thursday, August 31, 2006

Does Lack Of Freedom Incubate Terrorists Movements?

I don't know if any one else will bother reading the transcripts from today's presidential propaganda venture in Utah. But I have some questions regarding one sentence in W's expository speechifying:

1) Is it true that a "lack of freedom" incubates terrorist movements? If so, prove it!

You see, when the President of the United States stands up and says...
Instead, the lack of freedom in the Middle East made the region an incubator for terrorist movements.
...don't you think that is a great oversimplification?

When our government "leaders" pitch us into "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. (Applause.)," we should be wary of the rhetoric from both sides of that struggle, no? Simply because a President says something does not make it true.

There may be a correlation, but certainly there is no scientific justification to make the connection causal. It's like saying, you caused the rain because you forgot your umbrella on the way to work. Sure it rained, but does one flow from the other?

Now, I may be an idiot and a simpleton, but I think there have to be more reasons (some of which are were well in our control and some not) than just that there was a lack of freedom. Can't there be another way to reason out the rationale as to why terrorists exist?

I might even suggest that it is the exact opposite as to what the President suggests. Might it not be because we are exposing the middle east to our brand of freedom that there are more terrorists now than there were before we went into Iraq. From that sentence, we might even venture to say that pushing freedom onto a people is a better incubator for terrorism than totalitarianism. How's that for some ideological dissonance?

If I were to ever get an audience with the President while he is in front of the press pool, I would ask the following:
  • Q - Mr. President, thank you for taking my question. You said in your speech in Utah at the end of August that a lack of freedom incubates terrorist movements. Might that not be the whole story? Do you think it could be because we are pushing our brand of freedom on the Middle East that we are doing more to incubate terrorist movements than a lack of freedom ever has?
Certainly, we won't be getting any mea culpa out of this administration, but I do think it is important to question both sides of the ideological struggle, particularly since the 21st century just got started, and our future generations will have to live with the consequences of our actions.

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