A Thought About Bush's 'National Strategy for Combating Terrorism' and Hamas

It's after 1am in the morning, and I cannot begin to figure out the nuances of Bush's new "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism" as he described it on Tuesday.

Austin Bay has scanned parts of the document, posts some of the content and has some thoughts.

Personally, when I read stuff like...

Deny terrorists the support and sanctuary of rogue states. The United States and its allies and partners in the War on Terror make no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor terrorists. Any government that chooses to be an ally of terror has chosen to be an enemy of freedom, justice, and peace. The world will hold those regimes to account. To break the bonds between rogue states and our terrorist enemies, we will work to disrupt the flow of resources from states to terrorists while simultaneously working to end state sponsorship of terrorism.

and

The United States currently designates five state sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Syria, Sudan, North Korea, and Cuba. We will maintain sanctions against them and promote their international isolation until they end their support for terrorists, including the provision of sanctuary. To further isolate these regimes and persuade other states not to sponsor terror, we will use a range of tools and efforts to delegitimate terrorism as an instrument of statecraft. Any act of international terrorism, whether committed by a state or individual, is reprehensible, a threat to international peace and security, and should be unequivocally and uniformly rejected. Similarly, states that harbor and assist terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists, and they will be held to account.

...I naturally think of Hamas, Fatah, and the PA.

News such as...

Palestinian terror organizations are currently training in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to carry out operations aimed at kidnapping Israeli soldiers, said a terror leader whose group in June abducted Israeli Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit.

...not to mention of course the firing of Kassam rockets at Israeli cities from areas directly under the control of Hamas--who was behind the kidnapping of a soldier--does seem to fall under the category of "terrorism as an instrument of statecraft."

I've read some positive reviews of Bush's speech, but in just over a month, on October 15, will be the 3rd anniversary of the murder of 3 Americans by Palestinian Arabs terrorists when they blew up a US diplomatic convoy in Gaza. To date, the murderers are free.

If all of Bush's talk has no practical application for Palestinian Arab terrorists, then Bush need not have bothered.

Technorati Tag: Israel and President Bush and Palestinians and Hamas and Fatah and Palestinians.