People often ask me how in the hell someone like me – a young, gay, urban, Canadian-born atheist, can possibly support the Presidency of a conservative evangelical Christian from Texas. My answer to them is that for the last three years, since Sept. 11th 2001, I’ve been a single-issue voter. While I care very deeply about areas of social and economic policy where I feel this President falls short, winning the war on terrorism has to come first. The fact is, when it comes to understanding the nature of the war we are in, the President ‘gets it’ in a way that his squabbling critics on the left do not.
After 9/11, while so many writers and intellectuals were quick to demand that Americans try and understand the root causes of Muslim anger towards the west, and maybe even accept some of the blame for what had happened, I became outraged. As a former leftist, I had read and respected those who were now telling me that 9/11 was a good thing because it tempered the arrogance of the United States, or that it was the inevitable payback for neo-colonial exploitation. We got what was coming to us, in other words, for all the harm we had done to the Middle East over the years.
The President, however, echoed what I was really thinking – that Al Qaeda and its ilk hate the West for its religious tolerance, its social liberalism, its inclusion of women and gays, its ethnic diversity. In short, they hate us for the things we’ve done right, not what we’ve done wrong. Terrorists are driven by a fanatical desire to destroy all things Western, and impose a theocratic empire on the whole of the Muslim world. This is not an agenda on which we can meet them halfway.
In the three years since 9/11, President Bush has fought two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which have had the effect of liberating brutally oppressed populations and eliminating threats to the security of the United States and the world. He has also made mistakes along the way, many in relation to the reconstruction of Iraq. We must weigh the good with the bad in assessing his legacy thus far.
In the time that has passed since war was declared on the United States, we have seen our enemy closer than ever before. Murderous attacks across the globe-from Madrid to Jakarta, and from Bali to Chechnya-have taught us that Islamic terrorism will not hold to the agenda applied to it by Western apologists, but is wholly its own animal. Russian school children and French journalists are no safer than New Yorkers from this threat, and for that reason we cannot wait to see where they will strike next. Bush, for all his faults, has taken the fight to the enemy, engaging them on his terms rather than theirs. For that, I applaud him.
Now Americans, and the world at large, are facing what will surely be the most important election of our collective lifetime. Re-election of the President will mean an affirmation and continuation of the Bush revolution in foreign policy that began after September 11: preemptive warfare, selective regard for international institutions, and the radical democratization of the Middle East. Maybe just as importantly, Bush will finally gain the mandate that he has lacked since the contested 2000 election and the Florida recount, freeing him to pursue his policy goals more fully.
The election of John Kerry, however, would represent a major shift in American’s view of their country and its place in the world in 2004. It would mean termination and reversal for many of the initiatives begun by Bush, greater engagement with institutions like the UN, and certainly an end to the policy of unilateral preemptive war. This might be just what is needed to improve relations with America’s allies in Western Europe, but it’s certainly not going to win us any sympathy points with the Islamists. The war on terrorism will not end if Bush leaves office. It will not end simply because America throws up its hands and declares it wants out. This election is very much about who recognizes that fact, and who does not. For my part, I have made my decision, and I say: four more years.
