SALT LAKE CITY - President Bush on Thursday predicted victory in the war on terror at a time of increasing public anxiety at home, likening the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism with the fight against Nazis and communists.

(via the Associated Press)

Godwin's Law now applies to the War on Terrah.

Bush must really be feeling the heat. The only way he can drum up support for the war on terror is to retreat to Utah (the reddest of the red states) and invoke Nazism (which is what you do when you've run out of other arguments). Usually, his political stunts aren't so blatantly obvious. Clearly, the Republicans are worried about a shift in the balance of power come the midterm elections.

ITMFA. Maybe then we could have a rational debate about how to clean up this gigantic mess we find ourselves in.

There have been (and always will be) some number of Islamic fundamentalists that hate America simply on principle. The difference is how many of them are out there, and why they hate America.

There used to be a small number of people on the radical fringe that hated us because we had a different idea of God than they did. For that, I don't blame Bush. I blame all the people who think that they're right and sombody else is wrong about things that neither of them can really prove.

Now, post-Iraq, there's a much larger number of people who hate us because they think our goal is to kill as many of them as possible. And while that may not really be true, our actions in Iraq haven't exactly gone a long way to convince them of the contrary. So now we're stuck in a self-fulfilling prophecy and unless we do something soon, it won't be long before our goal really will be to kill as many of them as possible (simply because we have no other option). For that I absolutely blame Bush, and all the people who made the fallacious connection between Iraq and 9/11 and inferred causality where none existed. 

In some sense, I guess the War on Terrah isn't really that different from the War on Communism after all. Both were based on mutual misperception and mutual fear (initally unwarranted, then absolutely warranted). The worrisome thing is that Mutual Assured Desctruction isn't really a valid doctrine when your enemy doesn't care if he dies -- only that you do.

The classic counter argument here is "well smart-ass, what would you suggest we do?" To be honest, I don't know. If I had a good answer for that, I'd probably be running for President instead of sitting here working on software. However, I do think a good first step would be to fire the idiots who got us here. That at least demonstrates a willingness to change, and that not everyone thinks that what we're doing is a good idea.

Hopefully, that's an action item we can take for November.