President Bush says: “Obviously, the attack on our marines in Kuwait was a terrorist attack,” Mr. Bush told political reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before leaving for a political trip here.
That’s completely absurd. If an al Qaida attack on armed, uniformed, active-duty military personnel employed by a country that describes itself as “at war” with al Qaida is a terrorist attack, then everything is a terrorist attack. Indeed, what happened in Kuwait was almost the reverse of a terrorist attack. Which doesn’t make it okay. In fact, it was very bad. But it was very bad because al Qaida is a very bad organization with very bad goals and it would be a terrible thing if they accomplished those goals. Trying to seize some kind of procedural high-ground where we label their every action as some kind of illegitimate terrorist atrocity is both pointless and self-defeating. Bush needs to stand up and say what everybody knows