| Show: | Brian Lehrer Show |
| Air Date: | 2006.09.27 |
| Issue: | NIE report |
| Guest(s): | Multiple |
Brian Lehrer did an excellent segment this morning, reading out sections of the NIE report that Bush had attempted to suppress. In particular, he highlighted the finding that Muslim discontent had little or nothing to do with “our freedom” or their religious agenda, contrary to BushCo claims, but was based on concerns about Western domination, unfair treatment, support of oppressive regimes, etc. Lehrer also pointed out that the truth (according to the report) was anything but the Bush claim: Muslims overwhelmingly rejected the fundamentalism (Sharia law, etc) of the Al Qaeda and other Jihadist organisations.
In response to a caller’s gripe about anti-war protesters (whom the caller outrageously conflated with the views of Jihadists — an error he committed in the case of the general Muslim population also), in particular those again the Afghan War, Lehrer differed on their motivation, suggesting rather that these protesters predicted that the Afghan war would lead to widespread anger among Muslims around the world, which prediction proved to be false.
While it is possible some anti-war protester can be found who uttered such a prediction, this claim by Lehrer is wrong and misleading: anti-war protesters, in general, are not opposed to these wars for tactical or strategic reasons based on partisan preferable outcomes, but for principled reasons based on universal notions of just action and general outcome (outcome here being the impact on the Afghani population, which took the brunt of this assault).
