Why Bush is Losing to Islamic Extremists

Let's be clear on this: In the battle of ideas and ideology with the radical Islamicists, Bush is probably losing the fight.

This is not because of the lure of radical Islam. This is because Bush has proven, by his actions, time and time again, that all of the ideas that he espouses are ideas that he does not put into practice.

I do not think it is necessary to go into what America stands for. Yet under the name of America, Bush has put into practice the use of secret arrests, secret prisons, torture, detention without trial, rigged trials and the use of aggression. Bush has used "national security letters" to conduct searches of peoples' records without warrants. Warrantless searches. Data mining. Surveillance of opponents under the guise of national security (because the Quakers are such threats). The beating of the "fear drum" to cow people into surrendering their freedoms and to quash dissent.

So much for liberty. So much for freedom. So much for democracy.

Bush has thrown all of that aside in favor of the use of military power. He has surrendered America's moral high ground without a fight and has chosen to wade into the sewer of corruption and fascism in order to combat Islam.

This is an essential truth: You cannot quash ideas with force. If the use of the sword could crush ideas, we'd still be praying to Jupiter and the rest of the Roman pantheon of gods. Military and police force has not eliminated the desire of the people of China or Burma for greater freedom. Communism collapsed in eastern Europe of its own weight. The use of guns and truncheons can make people be quiet, but they cannot supplant ideas, yearnings or beliefs.

The counter-argument, of course, is Nazi Germany. But I maintain,however, that the fact that the Nazi ideology has been exiled to the fringes for the last sixty years is not because the Russians and the Western Allies crushed Germany, it is because the conquering of Germany showed to the world the evil nature of Nazism. Contrast this, if you will, with the conquering of Japan: The corresponding Japanese ideology, Japanese nationalism, is by no means extinct and keeps resurfacing in Japanese politics.

In a battle of ideas, Bush has come to the battle unarmed. His only real argument is "I have a bigger gun" and if history has shown anything, it is that such an argument is a proven loser.