Miliband starts by taking issue with the very the phrase, "War on Terror. " He objects because it gives people "the false idea of a unified global enemy." He believes the West is not at war, but trying to "disrupt terror groups." Miliband's suggested response to the Mumbai attacks epitomizes the approach. "Those who were responsible must be brought to justice," he writes. "The government of Pakistan must take urgent and effective action to break up terror networks on its soil."
Well, sure. That's great idea. Except the government of Pakistan doesn't seem very interested in doing any such thing. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Miliband ignores the money behind terror. Terrorists don't spring from nowhere like mold in the bathtub. In Pakistan, for instance, terrorism is fostered by the country's tens of thousands of fundamentalist madrases and mosques, most paid for by Islamic radicals in Saudi Arabia.
Certainly, terrorists in around the globe have different grievances, tactics and sponsors, In Gaza, for instance, Hamas is supported by Iran. (Don't get us started on the Revolutionary Guards. They also picked up the tab for Hezbollah's attacks on Israel in 2006.) But all these glocally divergent groups do ave a lot in common. Let's put it this way. If you could ask a room full of Iraqi insurgents, Taliban, Hezbullah and Hamas fighters (rough crowd) if they thought they were fighting a war, ten out of ten of them would say "yes." Specifically, most likely, a Jihad.
David Bromwich, the Yale Literature Professor, is also adamantly opposed to the War on Terror. But Bromwich, in this Huffington Post dissertation on Gaza, could care less about Pakistan and the Saudis. He says Israel is the core of the Muslim world's anger at the West, and says the gaza war is doomed because "killing terrorists create more terrorists." Bromwhich vow, "You cannot obliterate a people into a just and lasting peace."
Really? The peace imposed by the Union on the Confederacy after the Civil War wasn't very ust, but it seems to have lasted. And what about Nazi Germany? The Nazis were obliterated justly. In fact, a lot of high-ranking Nazis got off easy. The peace has surely lasted. So far, anyway. You never know with Germans.
Despite pulling out of Gaza three years, ago and now simply wanting rockets not to be fired from it, Bromwich says Israel "will have to give up a large part of the settlements it now holds." Apprently he thinks Hamas won't fire rockets over a new border.
Still in Gaza, Bill Moyers finishes up with this twisted gem. He says Israel is "killing indiscriminately; the elderly, kids, entire families" and "destroying schools and hospitals."
Wow. Whatever your views on the Middle East, that's just factually untrue. Israel has not waged war on the entire population of Gaza, about 1.5 million people. Israel, PR conscious as ever, has tried to avoid hurting civilians. "Schools and hospitals," for Moyers, apparently refers to the Israeli military strike on a UN-run school in Gaza -- a strike in response to mortars fired from nearby. No hospitals have been reported damaged. That "schools and hospitals" line must have just felt so good that Bill couldn't resist using it.
Finally, Moyers, boils it all down in a really funked-up way.
What we are seeing in Gaza is the latest battle in the oldest family quarrel on record. Open your Bible: the sons of the patriarch Abraham become Arab and Jew... Go to the Book of Deuteronomy... '...You must tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred poles, set fire to the carved images of their gods, and wipe out their name from that place.' So God-soaked violence became genetically coded.
Wow. Dude. Seriously. Is Bill Moyers, like, freaking out. Did he just say war was "genetically coded?" Did he just say all Arabs and Jews are biologcally predisposed to violence? Because it seems like that's what he was trying to. But that would be an ignorant, deeply racist and just plain bizarre thing to say -- especially someone working for taxpayer funded PBS. We must have misunderstood.
