Bush's faith in the war on terror

I wanted to say one more thing in regards to the Suskind article, but it did not fit in with the previous post.

The most telling parts of the article to me, however, were Bush's interactions with Jim Wallis a minister of thirty years. Bush approaches him with open enthusiasm after reading Wallis' book:

Wallis recalls telling Bush he was doing fine, "'but in the State of the Union address a few days before, you said that unless we devote all our energies, our focus, our resources on this war on terrorism, we're going to lose.' I said, 'Mr. President, if we don't devote our energy, our focus and our time on also overcoming global poverty and desperation, we will lose not only the war on poverty, but we'll lose the war on terrorism.'"

Bush replied that that was why America needed the leadership of Wallis and other members of the clergy.

"No, Mr. President," Wallis says he told Bush, "We need your leadership on this question, and all of us will then commit to support you. Unless we drain the swamp of injustice in which the mosquitoes of terrorism breed, we'll never defeat the threat of terrorism."

Bush looked quizzically at the minister, Wallis recalls. They never spoke again after that.

It was here it became clear that Bush did not understand the war on terror. To him, war is a board game, an Axis and Allies like assault on the Middle East. Once your tanks move into a country, that country is loyal to you. The battle is done, and there is no engaging in a second battle of hearts and minds. That has been Bush's downfall so far.

Wallis tells Bush that there is more to this war than destruction, there is the lifting up, the social changes that will alter the battlefield completely. With these changes in place, there will be less militarily that needs to be done and more groundwork that needs to be laid. We go on the offensive not to stop the terrorists, but to prevent them from becoming terrorists in the first place. We declare war on the mindset that causes terrorists to arise.

The President has started to become a failed leader in the war on terror because he is out of ideas. War and force, it seems, were his only ideas there, and we have seen both the brief effects and the limits of this idea. But rather than take up the mantle of changing the plan, he pushes for more of the same.

Ask yourself, America, looking now at the War on Iraq, if it is the long term answer to the war on terror. Imagine us invading Iran, Syria, even Saudi Arabia in an attempt to change those countries. Imagine the length of time, and the losses that America will face during those times. Does it seem like the best way to enact change?

Bush fails to understand that change from within means more to people than change from without, or rather seems to have forgotten it.

Bush overcame his alcoholism by taking the Lord into his heart. Change came not through faith's "shock and awe" campaign of massive bombings but a direct change in his ideology. People in Iraq now have no reason to believe that freedom is better than Saddam (even though we know it to be so) because they personally were not changed. They were not asked, they did not necessarily want to take freedom into their heart and see where is leads them. And now they witness car bombings and mass destruction as the price of liberty. I fear that these two images become entwined, and they long for the days of a brutal peace rather than this continued war.

The "hearts and minds" aspect of the war should always be the initial strike. We need to change the minds and conditions around the world that are the root causes terrorism, a preemptive strike, if you will. It's also time we had a leader that realizes that.