11-02-06, 6:20 a.m.

As I was listening to The Young Turks interview with Ari Melber of 'The Nation' Tuesday morning, there was one phrase that really jumped out at me. He referred to Bush's 'binary thinking' as one of the major reasons why his own base has abandoned him.

At the same time I was recalling Monday night's episode of 'The Daily Show' with Jon Stewart - not the scripted content, but the finale of clips as the show ended just before transitioning to 'The Colbert Report'. There were 3 very brief clips from Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Bill O'Reilly, and Lynne Cheney, all parroting the exact same Republican talking point:

'Don't you want to win the war on terror?'

And then I thought back to the myriad of President Bush's speeches over the last five years talking about winning and losing the 'War on Terror'.

This ideological method of 'binary thinking' is precisely what's wrong with the neo-conservatives in Washington today. These asinine hacks think of our national defense in terms of winning and losing, and have NO idea how to behave in the global arena. Why does everything have to be so black-&-white? 'You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists!' Bush declared days after September 11, 2001.

Of course... I'm not 'with' the terrorists, but I'm certainly not 'with' George W. Bush either. He manipulated/fabricated intelligence and maliciously lied our country into an unprovoked, pre-emptive war against a small defenseless nation. In the 3 1/2 years following that war, as he's occupied that nation, he's botched every facet of the project to make his military-industrial-complex friends rich, and the United States of America bankrupt. In the process he's made us much less safe, and 'our enemies' much more emboldened. He has destroyed our international reputation, and our constitutional rights. And that's just for starters.

The world is not all black-&-white, Mr. Bush. A true leader must look at problems with vision, selflessness, and long-term outlook. A true leader must approach issues with insight and openness. A true leader must listen to arguments on all sides and make decisions that actually resolve the problems. A true leader communicates in such a way that factions aren't offended, embarrassed, angered, ashamed, scorned, or betrayed. A true leader resolves conflicts so that all sides feel like winners. A true leader has integrity. You Mr. Bush, are the farthest thing from a true leader.



It's a tool

The neo-con catch-phrase of 'winning the war on terror' is simply a tool. It's nothing but propaganda. It's a tool used for baiting Democrats into agreeing with it so they don't come off as soft on national security. (How else would perfectly good Democrats vote against our own constitution and kill Habeas Corpus.) It's a tool used for keeping the people in our country living in fear in order to fuel the military-industrial-complex. It's a tool used for instituting new laws which go directly against our constitutional mandates and make the executive branch all powerful. It's a tool used for giving George W. Bush and his neo-con cabal a blank check to decimate our environment and alienate our allies.



Shades of Gray

This is the reason we can no longer allow George W. Bush to have a rubber-stamp Congress. It's much too dangerous, and downright psychopathic, to think of the world in black-&-white terms. This is the reason we're still occupying Iraq and we'll continue to occupy Iraq for the foreseeable future – because George W. Bush can't exit Iraq without 'winning'. He has hung his presidency and his legacy on it. The problem is - there's no way to 'win' an occupation. Yet, George W. Bush arrogantly thinks of our occupation of Iraq as a matter of winning or losing. Occupations are not that kind of game. You can't just run out the clock and declare victory because we have more points. No country likes to be occupied by another, and the Iraqi people will fight 'till their last dying breath to defend their country, just as we would (just as we DID in the 1770's). The sooner our leaders in Washington realize this, the sooner we can bring our troops home and give Iraq back to the Iraqis.

Peace is not about winning and losing. Peace is not a 'black-&-white' issue. It's all shades of gray. Peace is about diplomacy, leadership, partnership, trust, and alliances. This world is no place for binary thinkers.

-Scott Shuster is a progressive columnist, publishing since May of 2005.

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