labeled as such. Some neoconservative strategists may have helped to devise it, but ultimately it is President Bush who adopted it and it is the Bush position that enjoys general support on the right and in the Republican Party. I recognize of course that there are dissident factions on the right, primarily the Buchanan wing of the “old right” and the libertarian critics. I will address their views later. Here I outline the central principles of Bush’s conservative understanding of 9/11.
Terrorism is the problem.
The first premise is that there is a new kind of warfare in today’s world that is substantively different from earlier types of war. The new type of war is terrorism, reflecting what President Bush called “the very worst of human nature.” What makes the new kind of war especially dangerous is that it targets civilians rather than military targets. Consequently terrorism is immoral in itself. As Bush told the United Nations General Assembly on November 10, 2001, “There is no such thing as a good terrorist. No national aspirations, no remembered wrong, can ever justify the deliberate murder of the innocent.” 8 Conservatives recognize that the main perpetrators of terrorism are not nation states but independent groups like Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Hamas that operate across formal boundaries. Since terrorist groups often collaborate with one another, there is an international network of terrorism that poses a threat to America, to Europe, to Israel, indeed to civilization itself. “This is civilization’s fight,” President Bush told a Joint Session of Congress on September 20, 2001. “Every nation now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” Bush pledged that America would lead a “war against terrorism” to eradicate the threat posed by this international network of terrorist groups.
They hate us for our freedom.
A second key notion in Bush’s conservative understanding is that America stands for freedom and it is freedom that the terrorists envy and despise. “America was targeted for attack,” President Bush said in his first televised address after 9/11, “because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.” In his speech to Congress a few days later, Bush explained the motives of bin Laden and the 9/11 attackers: “They hate what we see right here in this chamber—a democratically elected government. They hate our freedoms—our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.” One line of conservative analysis holds that many in the Muslim world lack the blessings of freedom and blame America for the self-inflicted problems of their own society. Author Victor Davis Hanson writes, “Rather than looking to itself—by emancipating women, holding free elections, opening markets, drafting constitutions, outlawing polygamy, curbing fundamentalism, insisting on secular education, and ending tribalism—the Islamic world has more often cursed others.” 9
This is World War IV against a new evil empire.
The Cold War was, in fact, World War III. Now the West is engaged in World War IV, and the enemy, although different, bears a close resemblance to Nazis and Communists. Conservative commentators like Norman Podhoretz and Daniel Pipes have sounded this theme, and the Bush administration has echoed it. The new adversary is, in President Bush’s view, “the heir of all the murderous ideologies of the twentieth century.” Here, then, is another possible explanation for why the terrorists hate freedom: like the Nazis and the Soviets before them, they are partisans of despotism and totalitarianism. Conservatives often describe the enemy as “Islamo-fascism” or, as the
American Enterprise
recently called it, “Bolshevism in a headdress.” Recalling Reagan’s “evil empire” description of Soviet communism, Bush discovered in nations like Iraq and
Terrorism is the problem.
The first premise is that there is a new kind of warfare in today’s world that is substantively different from earlier types of war. The new type of war is terrorism, reflecting what President Bush called “the very worst of human nature.” What makes the new kind of war especially dangerous is that it targets civilians rather than military targets. Consequently terrorism is immoral in itself. As Bush told the United Nations General Assembly on November 10, 2001, “There is no such thing as a good terrorist. No national aspirations, no remembered wrong, can ever justify the deliberate murder of the innocent.” 8 Conservatives recognize that the main perpetrators of terrorism are not nation states but independent groups like Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Hamas that operate across formal boundaries. Since terrorist groups often collaborate with one another, there is an international network of terrorism that poses a threat to America, to Europe, to Israel, indeed to civilization itself. “This is civilization’s fight,” President Bush told a Joint Session of Congress on September 20, 2001. “Every nation now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” Bush pledged that America would lead a “war against terrorism” to eradicate the threat posed by this international network of terrorist groups.
They hate us for our freedom.
A second key notion in Bush’s conservative understanding is that America stands for freedom and it is freedom that the terrorists envy and despise. “America was targeted for attack,” President Bush said in his first televised address after 9/11, “because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.” In his speech to Congress a few days later, Bush explained the motives of bin Laden and the 9/11 attackers: “They hate what we see right here in this chamber—a democratically elected government. They hate our freedoms—our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.” One line of conservative analysis holds that many in the Muslim world lack the blessings of freedom and blame America for the self-inflicted problems of their own society. Author Victor Davis Hanson writes, “Rather than looking to itself—by emancipating women, holding free elections, opening markets, drafting constitutions, outlawing polygamy, curbing fundamentalism, insisting on secular education, and ending tribalism—the Islamic world has more often cursed others.” 9
This is World War IV against a new evil empire.
The Cold War was, in fact, World War III. Now the West is engaged in World War IV, and the enemy, although different, bears a close resemblance to Nazis and Communists. Conservative commentators like Norman Podhoretz and Daniel Pipes have sounded this theme, and the Bush administration has echoed it. The new adversary is, in President Bush’s view, “the heir of all the murderous ideologies of the twentieth century.” Here, then, is another possible explanation for why the terrorists hate freedom: like the Nazis and the Soviets before them, they are partisans of despotism and totalitarianism. Conservatives often describe the enemy as “Islamo-fascism” or, as the
American Enterprise
recently called it, “Bolshevism in a headdress.” Recalling Reagan’s “evil empire” description of Soviet communism, Bush discovered in nations like Iraq and
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