What BUSH Doesn't Get About the War on Terror

This is a sequel of sorts to a diary I posted a few months back, titled "What don't we get about the war on terror?"  (Hey, I like the echo even if it's a little off.) It's also a response to what seems to be (link goes to an excellent diary by "republicansforkerry") on what may be the new Republican smear attack on John Kerry - distorting his quote in the New York Times magazine in which he says:

 "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance."

What follows are some of my thoughts on why Bush supporters and Kerry supporters seem to be living on different planets as far as dealing with the "war on terror," and why I'm deeply enraged about the implication from the GOP that, in effect, terrorists should be the focus of our lives.  They can ask me to support their candidate; they do not have the right to demand that I accept their worldview.

You will hear GOP supporters and Bush himself constantly referring to a "pre 9/11 mentality" and insisting that 9/11 changed everything.  To these people, since 9/11 we have been locked in an epic struggle of good vs evil and in a clash of civilizations.  Once this mentality becomes your mentality (and don't they wish we'd all believe it!), your whole frame of reference has shifted.  Your frame of reference has become, "We are locked in an epic war with no end in sight," and you have to support the guy who "gets it."  To you, the other candidate - Kerry - doesn't even realize the nature of the conflict, and by definition will be unable to lead it or win it.

What this talk about a "mentality" and not understanding the "fundamental nature" of the war on terror means.. bluntly.. is that the Bush administration is purposely scaring the living shit out of the American people in order to force us to accept a political science theory.  Suddenly, it's not our freedoms that matter, it's that "terrorists hate freedom."  Suddenly, it's not about who we are, but that terrorists "hate us for who we are."  Suddenly we are supposed to obsess over an "ideology of hate" instead of getting down to business and shoring up homeland security.

The GOP is pushing this theory hard by distorting Kerry's remarks and parsing them to make it sound like Kerry wouldn't fight terrorism effectively.  This works for their audience; they're saying Kerry doesn't "get" the war on terror and trying to make people believe Kerry can't or won't stop terrorism.  But all they're really saying is that Kerry doesn't accept their theory of perpetual, epic war.  The entire point is to make Kerry unacceptable as a commander in chief because he doesn't "understand the fundamental nature of the war on terror."  

Furthermore, the Bush campaign depends on pushing their theory on the rest of us by constantly, constantly talking like we should all be living in fear of an amorphous, ill-defined, yet omnipresent enemy.  That's what happens when your "war on terror" is part and parcel of a larger theoretical framework.. and when you run a campaign by claiming the other guy wouldn't protect the country because he doesn't believe your theory.  

It makes me angry.  This is the United States of America and George W Bush has a theory: he wants the United States of America to be defined by terrorism.  It doesn't matter that he means to define it in opposition to terrorism.  What matters is that this gives terrorism a strength it wouldn't and shouldn't otherwise have.  So if you want to redefine yourself through an entire mentality based on terrorism, to live in fear of terrorism and to worry yourself sick over what terrorists want and to care about their alleged "ideology," vote for Bush, by all means.  

I would love to hear a solid, smart defense of the approach that says "we have to make it so that we don't CARE about terrorists."  In my opinion, it is the job of the government and the commander in chief to ensure that we the people don't care about the aims and goals of terrorism, any more than we care about the aims and goals of common criminals.  All we need to do is to be reasonably smart about our personal safety, and let the special ops, the military, and law enforcement handle the rest.  But we as a society shouldn't be asking the question of what terrorists want so we can go and do just the opposite, instead of being ourselves and being free.  We shouldn't be worrying about what terrorists want and living in constant fear.  There should only be this promise from our leaders: terrorists will be stopped.  Period.

So I believe the fundamental nature of the war on terror is that the American way of life cannot, should not, and will not be changed by terrorism or fear of terrorism.  

Otherwise, it's welcome to the terrordome, people.  What the Bush administration is really demanding through this constant refrain of fear, fear, fear, war, war, war, is that we the American people change our fundamental beliefs about what this country stands for and how we view the world, that we reduce ourselves to being one half of a polarized world in which you're either with George Bush or with the terrorists.  That, to me, is deeply offensive.  No president has the right to demand that.