Yes, the Jan. 6 insurrectionists were terrorists. George W. Bush just indicted them.
Opinion by Jennifer Rubin
Columnist
Yesterday at 1:59 p.m. EDT
Few Americans expected wisdom from former president George W. Bush on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Even fewer expected wisdom on the current state of our politics. That is nevertheless what we got from his remarks in Shanksville, Pa., today.
In perhaps the most important words spoken in his political career, Bush in his remarks at the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 drew a straight line between the 9/11 terrorists and the 1/6 terrorists. “We have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders but from violence that gathers within,” he said. “There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit." He added, "It is our continuing duty to confront them.” Bush’s words were an indictment not only of the violent MAGA insurrectionists but also, implicitly, of his party that coddles them and the leader whom the 1/6 terrorists wanted to install by force.
The violent insurrectionists carried symbols of the Confederacy (the traitors whose rebellion resulted in more than 600,000 American deaths) in the Capitol, where they trashed the citadel of democracy and tried to hunt down House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The Capitol, of course, was the suspected target of Flight 93; the heroes on board that plane spared the lawmakers and others who worked there from the fate of occupants of the twin towers and the Pentagon. The 1/6 terrorists breached the building the 9/11 terrorists could not. Both the 9/11 terrorists and the domestic 1/6 terrorists sought to destroy our democracy in service to a crazed ideology of intolerance.
....
Bush’s bluntness was a refreshing antidote to the usual blasé treatment of a radicalized Republican Party that embraces “children of the same foul spirit” as the 9/11 terrorists. The press, the ecosystem of donors, activists and operatives, and even, to an extent, the Democrats all treat Republicans as a normal political party within our democratic system, rather than as the enablers of a “foul spirit” and violent extremism. They shy away from labeling Republicans as “1/6 truthers” when the GOP’s effort to direct blame away from the actual terrorists is no better than claiming 9/11 was an inside job. (McCarthy and his cohorts insist it’s Pelosi who should be investigated.)
Our collective error may have been in refusing to consistently label 1/6 as a terrorist attack and its perpetrators as terrorists. If we do that, as Bush did, we would arrive at a much more realistic — and damning — portrait of today’s GOP. The media would be compelled to drop its false equivalence between the parties. We would, in short, reach the inevitable conclusion that today’s GOP operates outside of and is a threat to peaceful democratic governance and a multiracial democracy.
A course correction is still possible. Bush reminds us: It is never too late to recalibrate our perspective and revisit our language.
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/11/yes-jan-6-insurrectionists-were-terrorists-george-w-bush-just-indicted-them/
| 
