One of those MUST READ articles before pulling the lever:
THE LESSONS OF 9/11
By AMIR TAHERI
September 11, 2008 — NY Post
TODAY’s joint visit to Ground Zero may give the impression that John McCain and Barack Obama share a common analysis of the causes of 9/11 and how to deal with its legacy. They don’t.
The divide starts with the question: Why was America attacked?
McCain’s answer is simple (or, as Obama might suggest, simplistic): The United States was attacked because a resurgent Islam has produced a radicalism that dreams of world conquest and sees America as the enemy.
In different shapes and sizes and under a range of labels, that radical streak of Islam has waged war on America since 1979, when Khomeinists seized the US embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage for 444 days.
The killing of 241 Marines in Beirut in 1983, the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 and a host of other operations that claimed more American lives were episodes in a war – the reality of which the United States faced only after 9/11.
McCain doesn’t hesitate to acknowledge that his country is engaged in a Global War on Terror. He doesn’t believe that 9/11 might’ve been prompted by some wrong America did to others. To him, the nation was an innocent victim of “Islamic terrorism.”
McCain asserts, “America faces a dedicated, focused and intelligent foe in the War on Terrorism. This enemy will probe to find America’s weaknesses and strike against them. The United States cannot afford to be complacent about the threat, naive about terrorist intentions, unrealistic about their capabilities, or ignorant to our national vulnerabilities.”
He’d pursue and fight these “enemies” wherever they are – including, especially, in Iraq. “If we run away,” he says, “they are going to follow us home.”
OBAMA, by contrast, doesn’t use terms such as “the Global War on Terror” or “Islamic terrorism.” Nor does he claim that America was simply an innocent victim.
In one speech, he used the image of a US helicopter flying over the poor countries in Africa and Asia, where it’s seen as a symbol of oppression. He says his objective is to turn that helicopter into a symbol of American aid to the downtrodden.
For Obama, the threat comes not from terrorists but from “extremists” and their “program of hate.” He never uses such terms as “jihadist,” judging them hurtful to Muslims. He speaks of “violent extremists who are a small minority of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims.”
In one speech, he claimed that the Islamists aim only at “creating a repressive caliphate.” He seemingly hasn’t heard of jihadist movements whose declared aim is to destroy the United States in the name of Islam.
For McCain, the War on Terror is a “just war” in which Americans fight for their security and their allies’. Obama rejects the concept of “just war.” He dismisses the Iraq war as both “unnecessary and unjust” – though the struggle in Afghanistan is “a necessary war.”
ONE constant Obama theme is the claim that poverty and economic factors breed terrorism; this echoes the analysis of Jimmy Carter back in the ’70s. Strengthening that impression is Obama’s pick of Sen. Joseph Biden as running mate.
Biden denies there’s a War on Terror in the first place or that the United States even knows whom it’s fighting. He has declared that “terrorism is a means, not an end, and very different groups and countries are using it toward very different goals. If we can’t even identify the enemy or describe the war we’re fighting, it’s difficult to see how we will win.”
While McCain puts the emphasis on hard power – that is, on meeting and defeating the enemy on the battlefield – Obama, echoing Carter and Bill Clinton, promises a greater use of soft power.
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