REPUBLICAN 'STRAW MAN" ARGUMENTS FOR WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST

"Straw man is a fallacy in  which an opponent's argument is overstated or misrepresented in order to be more easily attacked or refuted."

In his article "Don't Live With Terrorism, Go on the Offensive" G.W. Bush's former U.S. attorney general advances a straw-man argument for war in the Middle East:

Terrorism -- of the Islamist variety, which we are likely to find we are dealing with here -- is not a fairly static and statistical phenomenon, like automobile accidents or slips in the bathtub . . . . It results from the purposeful conduct of people who are motivated by two things: an overly literal reading of Islamic scripture, and success.

This reminds me of George W. Bush’s tone-deaf, demagogic statement: “They hate us for our freedoms.” (Emphasis mine.)

Does in not occur to either of these worthies that terrorism is obviously motivated by righteous anger and thirst for revenge toward the West for having invaded the Middle East under false pretenses, killing and wounding tens of thousands of Muslims (many of whom were non-combatant men, women and children), wrecking their infrastructure and destabilizing their economy? 

Failing to acknowledge that, American hawks advocate more of the same, with the unsurprising result of the rise of Daesh/ISIS and increasing attacks on Western soil by home-grown radicalized Muslims. Were they to acknowledge the real motivation behind radical Muslim violence toward the West, they might reach the obvious conclusion that to stop terrorism, stop provoking them: Get out of the Middle East and let Islam sort out its differences in a civil war ongoing for the better part of 14 centuries.