Am I missing something? It's a fairly accurate condensation of his words and his intent. What's the problem with the quote?

You forgot to add "other than the fact that Bush made it" (so it has to be a lie, or carry some evil purpose)

I can see his point, actually. The killer actually does seem to care for the mother but not for the victim being a non believer.

By the way: everyone in Holland would love for this man to be a psycho but he's not. He's convicted he is doing the right thing. He does not feel remorse not because he can't but he feels it was his duty to kill. Stop repeating things you say on Law & Order. This guy is truly scary exactly because he does have believes and he does have a sense of morality, albeit a highly twisted one.

Overanalysis causes paralysis.  Maybe there simply wasn't room for the entire quotation.  If the guy says he can't feel remose then he's psychotic, whether he has religious beliefs (which is a given) or not.  Ask any psychologist.

I think most of the twisting here is taking place by the blog author and half of the blog commentors.

Anyhow, it's a pointless blog entry anyways.

You read in to much into the topic. The only one to rant about bush bashing is you. Chavannes is dutch (read the bio) and gives you background information on the bush speech.

As far as I'm concerned, saying "I do not feel your pain -- because I believe you are an infidel." and "I am also incapable of empathy because you are a non-believer." is substantively the same thing.

Inserting the word "infidel" for "non-believer" is dishonest, and deliberately using an inflammatory word that the guy himself apparently didn't use.  The words are technically homonyms, but do not have the same impact on the ears of people, as Bush, or more precisely, his speechwriter, well knows.  Bush was aiming for maximum emotional effect -- much as he did when he buffaloed the country into invading Iraq with tales of mushroom clouds and yellowcake uranium.  If more people had quibbled over little rhetorical tricks then (remember "The British government has learned"?), we might not be in this mess in the first place.  

Did y'all finally decide how many angels can stand on a pin?

Well, I'm not going to defend a psychopathic killer, but Bush's tactic is similar to saying that fundamentalist Christians are all evil because Pat Robertson once said:

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war."

Which brings me to the next question, who is the psychopathic killer--or is there more than one here?

You're right on, BtheD. I thought I was the only one who felt this way (well usually I am but it's nice not to be the only one every time). I've tried to point out the "oversimplification factor" that most here assign to Bush. It's the problem most of you run into alot of the time. Bush said "Blah Blah Blah..." It must be a lie because Bush said it. There must be some corrupt evil purpose behind it. It must some how make money for Halliburton. Everytime you over reach, or make senseless attracks, you lose credibility with the "masses in the middle" (which we learned over reaching for Clinton when there was plenty of simple, less glamorus stuff to beat up on him for). There's plenty of stuff to beat Bush over the head with now, with out making up something about him "trying to incite the world against Islam." 

Islamic Fanaticists do view all non-muslims as almost less than human!!! That's why they've been taking them hostage and cutting their heads off with a knife and screaming All-akkba!!!

As I am sure you are aware, the problem with this statement is that it attempts to blame a large number of people for the actions of a very few people. The number of Moslems who are involved with taking hostages and cutting their heads off, is an almost vanishingly small percentage of the "fanatical" Muslems in the world, just as the number of Christians involved with attacking abortion doctors is an equally small percentage of the number of fanatical Christians in the world. We have every reason to be angry at those Moslems and Christians who venture into murder as an activity to express their fanaticism, but we have no reason to ascribe that activity to the large number of fanatics in those religions.

Inserting the word "infidel" for "non-believer" is dishonest, and deliberately using an inflammatory word that the guy himself apparently didn't use.




How do you know? I doubt the testimony was in English, so what we're talking about is which translation most accurately reflects the tone of the original. In the absence of any knowledge one way or another on that question, it's just speculation.

How do you know? I doubt the testimony was in English, so what we're talking about is which translation most accurately reflects the tone of the original. In the absence of any knowledge one way or another on that question, it's just speculation.

I took the trouble to read the transcripts in the european press.  Every report I read said "non-believer."  Now, perhaps they were all being politically correct, and Bush was using the words the guy really said.  Except Bush, or his speechwriters, to be more exact, had no way of knowing, since they weren't there.  It was a deliberate word choice.

Marc,

It is exactly the kind of thing the news media does fairly often, selective quoting or selective presentation of the facts. In both cases it can be purposefully misleading.

As a graduate of RU Leiden, I have read Mr. Chavannes' work in NRC Handelsblad for about 20 years now.  I think that I can agree with some of the commenters that this post could have been fleshed out a little better.  One ironic thing is that in the Dutch political spectrum the NRC is somewhat on the right, although if you transported its politics over here, it would be called flaming liberal.  By moving from Holland to the United States 15 years ago, I went from being a conservative to being a flaming liberal in an instant, without changing any of my political philosophies - but enough about me.

If I may speculate, I think Mr. Chavannes is trying to add some perspective on how Europeans see American foreign policy under Mr. Bush; that is it is frought with a ton of ignorance.  Bush's statement regarding this is symptomatic of this ignorance.  The United States is still the world's only super power; it its leader says something about what happened in your country[in this case the Netherlands], those people are going to take special notice, especially if it is inaccurate, or what the Bush administration often does on the domestic front, employs what Al Franken calls "weasel words", that is, technically accurate statements that intend to mislead.

Believe it or not, but the Netherlands was one of the countries in the "coalition of the willing" although it was more in an advisory role than anything else.  Foreign countries are willing to help with your goals if there is some mutual enlightened self interest.  Above all, diplomatically, because of its ignorance, the Bush administration has been disasterous.  Through its policies the Bush administration has only one coalition partner left and they are itching to get out too. 

As I can only guess that a very limited amount of people can read Dutch on this site, I can tell you that the majority of the later entries of his blog for NRC were about John Bolton.  The John Bolton appointment was symptomatic about what the Bush administration really thinks about foreign policy - i.e. my way or the highway.  I'd like to come back to that point in a minute. 

On this site and all over the liberal blogosphere, you see constant mention about what a complete idiot Mr. Bush is.  I actually cringe every time I see those comments, because one does not become President of the United States by being stupid.

What I do think Mr. Bush is, is ignorant and lacking of intellectual curiosity.  It is very, very easy to confuse the two. (that is, ignorance and stupidity).

If there is one skill set what Europeans expect of their leaders is that they do have some sense of intellectual curiosity; because of the many different countries, religions and cultures in such close proximity of each other it is an absolute necessity in order to survive politically.  Having a leader who lacks intellectual curiosity has certainly widended the political divide between the United States and Europe; Clinton was relatively popular because he had the opposite quality - he was extremely intellecually curious.

Vis-a-vis Iraq, the Bush adminstration has offered "the left" a false choice, "cut and run" or "stay the course."  To tie back in to my point about Mr. Bolton and diplomacy, both of these choices assume that we are just going to give the rest of the world the middle finger and do it our way or the highway.

It is in the Europeans interest that the Iraq region definitely becomes more stable, the price of oil effects us all and because of the insurgency the oil that was come from Iraq since Saddam fell has been minimal, certainly not enough so that they could pay their own way as Mr. Wolfowitz told us before our excellent Iraqi adventure.

The third way in Iraq is that we, once again, engage the world community and come up with a solution that benefits the entireworld.  If there is a French company that can finally build  electrical plants so that all Iraqis have electricity (I think the number is 50%), good.  If we can find Egyptians, Syrians or Saudis that can assist with police work, great!  The situation as it stands now benefits no one except for Iran.  (Read Juan Cole at length about that)  That world community has to be engaged, however, not patronized.

DJBaker

Thank you for a truly thoughtful post.  Just two comments:

First, just about everything Bush says is designed to oversimplify issues, to turn every problem into a simple black and white problem where there is a clear right and a clear wrong, a clear good and a clear evil. He or his speechwriters are often quite clever in doing this. It's also a fine American tradition, which has its usefulness when one wants to get people to act. What's frustrating though, is that the world isn't really so simple, and sometimes oversimplifying leads to disasterous policy results. Effectively solving problems often requires an understanding of complexity. What I fear about Bush is that he may really believe his oversimplification--he's not just practicing effective rhetoric with a wink, he's actually misleading himself. This quickly becomes dangerous when he can't recognize or understand the realities and complexities of the world and therefore makes disasterous policy decisions.

Second, I agree that there is a distinction between stupidity and ignorance, but I think a lack of intellectual curiousity is one of the building blocks of stupidity. And when one has the opportunity of a Yale and Harvard education, as well as exposure to all the experiences that Bush has had exposure to, and still remains ignorant, then he is indeed also stupid.    

The trouble with your comparison is the silent support for such behavior.  Most Christians in the United States, based on polls, are pro-choice, and thus do not support the closing of abortion clinics let alone the murdering of doctors.

In the Islamic-Arab world many feel themselves disrespected and downtrodden.  This has been a 1,000 year long process.  When Bin Laden or Hamas acts it is a finger in the eye of the oppressor the disrespector.  As my cousin, a expert in Middle East politics who is fluent in Arabic, points out unless the Arab World controls those who use terror sooner or later the West will hold those who stay silent accountable.

"We also don't mind rounding up all of the christian suicide bombers who are targeting innocent civillians. What? It's only fanatical muslims doing this?... go figure!"

One name for you: Eric Rudolph.

I rated the two previous posts (#33 and the one prior to that) as "not helpful", because of stereotypes and generalizations, which, ironically enough, in a round and about way is the topic of the Parent Post.

I am assuming that the #33 post is referring to the Daniel Pearl case as well as the civilian contractor in Iraq who was hung off of a bridge.

If Pakistan or Iraq had the same rule of law as the United States, the murderers of Daniel Pearl and that contractor would have been brought to justice, or in the very least, every law enforcement agency from the local sheriff to the FBI would be searching for the people that committed those crimes.

As we can see from the pictures from the disaster in Pakistan, the standard of living there cannot compare in any shape or fashion with that in the United States.  By extension their criminal justice system cannot compare to ours in any shape or form either. 

I know that Michael Moore is not the most favorite person on this site and in some minds he is not the most trustworthy person, but in Fahrenheit 911 there is a scene where American soldiers break into an Iraqi family's home in the middle of the night, round up the family in the living room, hold them at gun point and ask, through a translator, them "where the terrorists are."  5 minutes later, they say "my bad, sorry" and leave.

If the FBI or the US Army did this in United States, there would be an absolute riot.  Actually, moreover, there have been situations such as these in the case of domestic terrorists.  During the Clinton administration the right was all up in arms on how the government overstepped its boundaries in two famous cases: Ruby Ridge, Idaho and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas.  Right wing radio brought this subject over and over again; how David Koresh justed wanted to be "left alone," while he had a hand in the death of a large number of his followers.

Let me be absolutely clear about one thing: What these people did to Daniel Pearl and that civilian contractor in Iraq is an absolute crime, those people are murderers, but it is no worse than what Eric Rudolph did to those people in Atlanta or to the nurse at the abortion clinic who is scarred for life; what Mohammed Atta did is just as bad as what Timothy McVeigh did.  In fact, what is the difference between a drug lord who threatens a cooperating witness in some American city and Ayman Al-Zakarwi who threatens anyone who wants to establish some sort of democratic government in Iraq?  My answer is that they are all terrorists and are all criminals.

During the 2004 campaign, Kerry was constantly criticized because he supposedly saw the Global War on Terror (or later the Global Struggle) as a "law enforcement issue."  Even a significant portion of the Democratic party advocate a "bomb the hell out of those people far away because it will make us look more manly" strategy.  The majority of the world community understands that murder of innocent people is wrong and people that do this are criminals and murderers.  I think they also understand that an eye for an eye is not a good long term strategy.

I don't think a lot of Americans realize this thoroughly enough but a lot of people read what we write and think through the Internet and watch what we say through CNN.  They notice that Americans are very much concerned about what happens with Americans and not so concerned about anybody else.

One of the first reports that I saw on CNN about the earthquake in Pakistan was whether there were any American casulties.  People around the world have noticed how discreet we were when covering the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, while the coverage during the tsunami disaster showed dead bodies piled up in the streets, because hey, it was over there in Borneo, not in the good ol' US of A.  The global community sees this double standard and in the long term this will ever further harm our own interests.

To bring this full circle to the subject of the original post, a strategy of bomb the hell out of those people far away so that they are scared of us is an ignorant, stupid strategy which solves nothing in the long term.  Al Queda's actions have consequences just as American actions have consequences; Abu Ghraib was not some hazing prank perpetrated by some country bumpkins from Appalachia - I believe Sy Hersch when he says that the crimes committed in Abu Ghraib went part and parcel with a premeditated American strategy instituted by Donald Rumsfeld.

The Treaty of New York, upon which the United Nations was founded is based, in large part, on the Constitution of the United States - this is no conincidence because those that instituted the United Nations understood the genius of the Founding Fathers; that democracy is based on the Rule of Law.  For some reason or another, a majority of the people in the United States believe that that same of Rule of Law doesn't apply to them; that we are a special category that we shouldn't agree to be a part of the International Criminal Court because, heaven forbid, we could be held accountable for our actions if we did something wrong.

The laws and the Constitution of the United States is still a shining example of how, no matter how many warts it has on it, a democracy should operate.  It is in our long term interest to treat every one in the world in exactly the same fashion and follow our basic constitutional principles in treating ourselves as well as everyone outside the United States.

Sorry dude, but this is just BS. Infidel = non-believer. It doesn't matter which word Bush chose to use. If he used "non-believer" that Islamic nut case who killed a man because he didn't like what he said about his religion, would STILL be equally batshit crazy.

This is the kind of shit that rightly pisses conservatives off and if people on the left can't understand why, we're never going to get these people to vote for democrats (i.e. vote in their economic interest).