Sept. 11: Why Bush Needs to Be Redeemed

Ten years after Sept. 11, 2001, history is now beginning to agree with George W. Bush — still unanimously condemned by the media for choosing to resist by force the al-Qaida and totalitarian Islamist war against democracies and Muslims more open to freedom. You only have to read the titles of apocalyptic anti-Bush media (for example, the April 7, 2003, issue of Marianne: “How Bush’s War is Setting Fire to the Whole World”; “Islamism Overwhelms the Muslim World”; “Youth Watched for Extremist Temptations”; etc.) to measure the errors of assessment in this sheep-like thinking, which likened the U.S. president to Hitler.

The Arab Spring, driven by a desire for democracy as well as pro-Western young Tunisians, Egyptians and Libyans, is the result that conservative Americans aspired to when they said they wanted to help democratize the Muslim world by toppling its tyrants. The 2003 operation in Iraq was questionable, poorly conducted and deadly. However, it revealed the face of a hateful jihad attacking the Muslims themselves. No offense to the parrots — Iraq was the starting point for this revolution in Arab youths’ thinking, which occasionally has more in common with rock ‘n’ roll than the Quran.

Following the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York, bin Laden was applauded in French cities. Ten years later, the fundamentalist terrorist was killed; the name of Nicolas Sarkozy is welcomed in Libya. The political change is considerable. France has not committed the errors that the United States did Iraq. But the result is the same: A despot, Gadhafi, has fallen by the brute force of a Western military coalition, in the name of Europe’s view of human rights. The war against totalitarianism, when it is led by a democratic ideal, is far more effective than the appeasement advocated by the “neo-munichois,”* always ready to submit and compromise. Still, Islamist ideology has not disappeared, not in Egypt nor Tunisia nor anywhere else. Also, it would be a mistake to fall prey to the excessive naivety suggesting that Islamism will self-dissolve in democracy. The many people who defend this view today are the same who challenged Bush’s resistance to “Islamo-fascism.” A democracy can live with Allah, on the condition that it lets go its many prohibitions. Nothing is yet won.

Nota bene: The movement for peace and against terrorism will take place Sunday, Sept. 11 in Paris, a demonstration to commemorate the 10th anniversary. Meet at 10 o’clock in the Luxembourg Gardens at the foot of the small replica of the State of Freedom. A concert will be held in tribute to all victims of terrorism. Then, a symbolic march will take place on rue Soufflot, with portraits of the victims, stopping in front of the Pantheon for a rally.

*Editor’s note: The “munichois” were those who favored an appeasement policy toward Adolf Hitler.