Gas, Terrorism, and GWB

A good friend sent me an email about my journal.  He said that he liked it but that he wished that I'd write about more political stuff.  Always anxious to please and desperate for approval, I decided to read the news today and select an issue for my focus.

After several hours of reading local and national news, I'm sufficiently depressed and disgusted to share my pain with you.

There is some good news, gas prices are expected to continue to fall.  Of course, every silver lining is surrounded by a storm cloud.  It appears that gas prices are an index of the president's approval rating.  As gas prices fall, George W.'s approval index rises.  (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-09-20-bush-gas-prices_x.htm)  Evidently, this cause and effect phenomenon did not occur with GWB's immediate three predecessors in the White House.  I guess that GWB is just special.  It's probably a coincidence that the dwindling gas prices have arrived shortly before fall elections.  Only a conspiracy theory nut would believe that there is any possibility that the administration has deliberately manipulated gas prices.

GWB's renewed vigor and focus on the war on terrorism also contributed to the rise in his approval rating over this last weekend.  Today (9/21/06), he and the dissident Republican Senatorial triumvirate of McCain, Graham, and Warner, have reached an agreement as to how much torture of suspected terrorists is permissible.  I can only anticipate another surge in his approval rating.  Oh, joy!(http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-09-21-detainees_x.htm) 

As a matter of full disclosure, I have never been a fan of GWB.  However, my disgust and anger isn't with the president, but with the American public.  GWB is only as powerful as we allow him to be.  One term as president could have been excused as a colossal misjudgment on the part of voters, but election for a second term lies on our collective shoulders.  We stepped into the pile of crap with our eyes wide open.

As a nation, we are wrapped up in an ongoing desire for revenge for 9/11, a day that left us all in state of outrage and horror.  But revenge is not an appropriate basis for foreign or domestic policy.  GWB's administration stirred up our emotions with talk of evildoers and persuaded us to invade another nation on what has been subsequently revealed to be a bogus claim that it possessed weapons of mass destruction.  GWB continues to call for our renewed support for the war on terrorism, appealing to our anger and outrage over terrorists acts.  Maybe I'm just too dumb to understand, but how do you fight a war against terrorism?  Terrorism is defined as the use of terror as a means of coercion.  Terror is defined as a state of fear induced by acts of coercion.  It sounds really scary and important to fight against terrorism but it masks any practical identification of the real issues.

Just a theory, but the word that keeps popping up is coercion, so what are the practitioners of terrorism (terrorists!!!) trying to coerce others into doing?  What do the terrorists want?  Why are they willing to die for for what they want? Suppose our government actually asked the questions and listened to the answers.  Suppose our government formulated a foreign policy designed to focus on addressing the issues raised by the dialogue and also engaged in some serious self examination. 

I know the litany--I'm naive, I have no military experience etc.  Maybe it's my naivete and lack of experience that makes me afraid to leave it to the current administration to stay the course.  What's the end destination if we continue on this course?  I don't think that our leadership has a clue.  Staying the course may well lead to a crash that leaves no survivors.

P.S. I really should stick to my general self absorption, this political stuff makes my head hurt.