The Election - 9/11 & the Wars
Oct. 22nd, 2004 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fidhleLike all voters this election, I have been trying to decide why I’m going to vote for or against the candidates. In the Presidential election, it is an easy choice for me to vote against the incumbent, because he has presided over what may well be the most incompetent administration in US history.
On 9/11/01, we were attacked by members of a Islamic fundamentalist organization headed by Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden’s grievances against the West and against the US in particular go back centuries, to the days of the Crusades. But more particularly to the introduction of US forces into Saudi Arabia following the first Iraq war and to our support of Israel. Bin Laden and his followers consider the US to be the most decadent nation on earth, and one which uses it’s power to oppress the people of the middle east, by maintaining troop and bases in the Islamic holy land, and by obtaining Arab oil at low prices to supply our demand for fuel.
At one time, several years prior to 9/11, Bin Laden, who does not really enjoy religious standing in Islam, issued a ‘fatwa’ that called for ‘good muslims’ to kill Americans where ever found. In effect, he declared war on the US and the West.
There was almost no attention paid to this ‘fatwa’ when it was first issued, but over time, Bin Laden did manage to strike at US interests. There were the Embassy bombings in East Africa, and then the attack on the US Cole. The Clinton administration, by the time of the embassy bombings, had become aware of the problem that Bin Laden posed to the US, and the President, burdened by strong opposition in the Congress and a witch hunt regarding his personal life, struck back with cruise missiles. Attacks which were generally relatively ineffective, but which did reflect the fact that we knew who the enemy was. When the current administration took over, their foreign policy people were advised by the outgoing administration that terrorism would be their biggest problem.
However, the Bush administration was more concerned with being the anti-Clinton’s and in engaging in old battles from the previous Bush admin. Therefore, they discounted the advise given to them, and pursued great power politics and missile defense systems rather than pay attention to Clinton’s pesky terrorists.
As a result, the Bush administration did virtually nothing to protect the US against what became the 9/11 attack, even though they had been in power over 8 months when that attack happened. Since they were not really looking for terrorist strikes, they didn’t set up the type of response systems which might have detected the presence of the terrorists on US soil and, perhaps, foiled the attacks.
No one can say whether the 9/11 attacks would have occurred if the attention paid by the Bush administration had been as great as the attention paid by the Clinton admin. to terrorism, but the Clinton admin. did foil an attack scheduled for the millennium celebration, at least in part due to increased coordination between various levels of law enforcement, and an alert Border patrol agent. I personally believe that, had Gore been President on 9/11, the impact of the attack, if they occurred, would have been lessened because the government would have been on high alert, which was not the case with the Bush administration, despite the increased ‘chatter’ among the terrorists which we detected.
Nonetheless, after the attack, the President acted fairly quickly to reassure the people and to plan an attack on the forces of Bin Laden, which were based primarily in Afghanistan.
The war in Afghanistan was a necessary war, but it can be argued that insufficient US forces were committed to that effort and too much reliance was made by using Afghan warlords to do the actual fighting and the attempt to capture or kill Bin Laden. As we know, Bin Laden escaped the trap and continues to issue statements urging his followers to attack the US even today.
But a funny thing happened on the way to victory in Afghanistan. The administration began to plan a war against Iraq. Iraq was not in anyway a natural ally of Bin Laden. Saddam Hussein was basically a secular Moslem dictator, running a state that was about as secular as an Islamic state could be. Bin Laden would have no love for Saddam, and vice versa, because Bin Laden would have wanted to overthrow Saddam as much or more than he wanted to strike at the US. Further, Iraq and Saddam were effectively contained by sanctions and by the fact that 60 percent of the country was under US air control. Further, Saddam would certainly have know that we would squash him like a bug if he were to do anything to strike at the US. Despite all of these factors, the Bush administration began to treat Iraq as the main enemy, and not the terrorists that had actually struck at the US, none of whom were Iraqi’s.
In the beginning of Shakespeare’s Henry V, there is a discussion of Salic Law, and whether the King of France was really the legitimate King. This somewhat strange discussion was, it seems, an attempt to justify the subsequent invasion of France by England. I sometimes had the feeling that I was watching a modern day “Salic Law” discussion when the administration was arguing that we should be enforcing the UN resolutions regarding Iraq, even though we would not ask for a vote in the UN to authorize us to do so, since the administration knew we would lose. I also remember feeling at the time that the on again/off again support for the UN inspection effort was perhaps more a ploy to gain time to build up forces than a real effort to determine whether Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. The Iraq war was sold to the public on the basis of a clear threat posed by Iraqi WMD’s, which we now know they did not have.
Why would Saddam pretend to have WMD’s if he didn’t? Because he could maintain his standing in the politics of the middle east if people didn’t know if he did or didn’t. If Iran, for example, knew that Iraq didn’t have WMD’s, then Iran would know that Iraq was not so much a threat to it, and perhaps Iran would have made moves on Iraq. We should remember that Saddam’s biggest enemy was not the US, or the West, but was Iran.
In order to prepare for the war in Iraq, which was an unnecessary and perhaps illegal war in my opinion, the administration began to pull resources from Afghanistan, including Arabic translators and special forces troops. This, of course, hampered our efforts in trying to locate and capture Bin Laden and his people.
Further, the administration became convinced, despite concerns expressed to the contrary, that the war in Iraq would be a cakewalk with no casualties, according to Pat Robertson, reported just recently, and in which the people would great us as liberators and there would be dancing in the streets of all of the cities of Iraq. Accordingly, they didn’t plan for the possibility of the type of resistance and disorder which occurred in reality. The administration undercut the Chief of the Joint Chief of Staffs when he had the nerve to suggest that several hundred thousand troops would be necessary. While they didn’t outright fire him, they announced his retirement some 18 months early, undercutting his authority and influence Never let it be said that facts should get in the way of a good theory with these guys
Thus, today, we have a fairly large US presence in the heart of the middle east, in a country where the population is opposed to us by about 80 percent according to the information that I have seen published, where journalists cannot travel in the country in safety, something which they could do shortly after the “war.” and where the people cannot be secure from attack. Also, Iraq is acting as a recruiting ground and argument for those people who would like to do us harm. US casualties have continued to mount, as have Iraqi casualties. The number of attacks has been steadily increasing and the country is perhaps headed towards a civil war. All of this was foreseeable, had the administration chosen to act cautiously.
I cannot think of a better example of sheer incompetence in foreign affairs than the handling of the Iraq war. We have alienated those nations closest to us in philosophy and culture, and have angered an entire generation of Islamic young men and women to no end other than to satisfy the dreams of a few neo-cons in the administration and the religious fantasizing of the President. That alone is sufficient reason to vote for almost anyone over George Bush. This administration, on the issue of war and peace, is simply incompetent, and cannot correct itself because it cannot admit that it has erred.
On 9/11/01, we were attacked by members of a Islamic fundamentalist organization headed by Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden’s grievances against the West and against the US in particular go back centuries, to the days of the Crusades. But more particularly to the introduction of US forces into Saudi Arabia following the first Iraq war and to our support of Israel. Bin Laden and his followers consider the US to be the most decadent nation on earth, and one which uses it’s power to oppress the people of the middle east, by maintaining troop and bases in the Islamic holy land, and by obtaining Arab oil at low prices to supply our demand for fuel.
At one time, several years prior to 9/11, Bin Laden, who does not really enjoy religious standing in Islam, issued a ‘fatwa’ that called for ‘good muslims’ to kill Americans where ever found. In effect, he declared war on the US and the West.
There was almost no attention paid to this ‘fatwa’ when it was first issued, but over time, Bin Laden did manage to strike at US interests. There were the Embassy bombings in East Africa, and then the attack on the US Cole. The Clinton administration, by the time of the embassy bombings, had become aware of the problem that Bin Laden posed to the US, and the President, burdened by strong opposition in the Congress and a witch hunt regarding his personal life, struck back with cruise missiles. Attacks which were generally relatively ineffective, but which did reflect the fact that we knew who the enemy was. When the current administration took over, their foreign policy people were advised by the outgoing administration that terrorism would be their biggest problem.
However, the Bush administration was more concerned with being the anti-Clinton’s and in engaging in old battles from the previous Bush admin. Therefore, they discounted the advise given to them, and pursued great power politics and missile defense systems rather than pay attention to Clinton’s pesky terrorists.
As a result, the Bush administration did virtually nothing to protect the US against what became the 9/11 attack, even though they had been in power over 8 months when that attack happened. Since they were not really looking for terrorist strikes, they didn’t set up the type of response systems which might have detected the presence of the terrorists on US soil and, perhaps, foiled the attacks.
No one can say whether the 9/11 attacks would have occurred if the attention paid by the Bush administration had been as great as the attention paid by the Clinton admin. to terrorism, but the Clinton admin. did foil an attack scheduled for the millennium celebration, at least in part due to increased coordination between various levels of law enforcement, and an alert Border patrol agent. I personally believe that, had Gore been President on 9/11, the impact of the attack, if they occurred, would have been lessened because the government would have been on high alert, which was not the case with the Bush administration, despite the increased ‘chatter’ among the terrorists which we detected.
Nonetheless, after the attack, the President acted fairly quickly to reassure the people and to plan an attack on the forces of Bin Laden, which were based primarily in Afghanistan.
The war in Afghanistan was a necessary war, but it can be argued that insufficient US forces were committed to that effort and too much reliance was made by using Afghan warlords to do the actual fighting and the attempt to capture or kill Bin Laden. As we know, Bin Laden escaped the trap and continues to issue statements urging his followers to attack the US even today.
But a funny thing happened on the way to victory in Afghanistan. The administration began to plan a war against Iraq. Iraq was not in anyway a natural ally of Bin Laden. Saddam Hussein was basically a secular Moslem dictator, running a state that was about as secular as an Islamic state could be. Bin Laden would have no love for Saddam, and vice versa, because Bin Laden would have wanted to overthrow Saddam as much or more than he wanted to strike at the US. Further, Iraq and Saddam were effectively contained by sanctions and by the fact that 60 percent of the country was under US air control. Further, Saddam would certainly have know that we would squash him like a bug if he were to do anything to strike at the US. Despite all of these factors, the Bush administration began to treat Iraq as the main enemy, and not the terrorists that had actually struck at the US, none of whom were Iraqi’s.
In the beginning of Shakespeare’s Henry V, there is a discussion of Salic Law, and whether the King of France was really the legitimate King. This somewhat strange discussion was, it seems, an attempt to justify the subsequent invasion of France by England. I sometimes had the feeling that I was watching a modern day “Salic Law” discussion when the administration was arguing that we should be enforcing the UN resolutions regarding Iraq, even though we would not ask for a vote in the UN to authorize us to do so, since the administration knew we would lose. I also remember feeling at the time that the on again/off again support for the UN inspection effort was perhaps more a ploy to gain time to build up forces than a real effort to determine whether Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. The Iraq war was sold to the public on the basis of a clear threat posed by Iraqi WMD’s, which we now know they did not have.
Why would Saddam pretend to have WMD’s if he didn’t? Because he could maintain his standing in the politics of the middle east if people didn’t know if he did or didn’t. If Iran, for example, knew that Iraq didn’t have WMD’s, then Iran would know that Iraq was not so much a threat to it, and perhaps Iran would have made moves on Iraq. We should remember that Saddam’s biggest enemy was not the US, or the West, but was Iran.
In order to prepare for the war in Iraq, which was an unnecessary and perhaps illegal war in my opinion, the administration began to pull resources from Afghanistan, including Arabic translators and special forces troops. This, of course, hampered our efforts in trying to locate and capture Bin Laden and his people.
Further, the administration became convinced, despite concerns expressed to the contrary, that the war in Iraq would be a cakewalk with no casualties, according to Pat Robertson, reported just recently, and in which the people would great us as liberators and there would be dancing in the streets of all of the cities of Iraq. Accordingly, they didn’t plan for the possibility of the type of resistance and disorder which occurred in reality. The administration undercut the Chief of the Joint Chief of Staffs when he had the nerve to suggest that several hundred thousand troops would be necessary. While they didn’t outright fire him, they announced his retirement some 18 months early, undercutting his authority and influence Never let it be said that facts should get in the way of a good theory with these guys
Thus, today, we have a fairly large US presence in the heart of the middle east, in a country where the population is opposed to us by about 80 percent according to the information that I have seen published, where journalists cannot travel in the country in safety, something which they could do shortly after the “war.” and where the people cannot be secure from attack. Also, Iraq is acting as a recruiting ground and argument for those people who would like to do us harm. US casualties have continued to mount, as have Iraqi casualties. The number of attacks has been steadily increasing and the country is perhaps headed towards a civil war. All of this was foreseeable, had the administration chosen to act cautiously.
I cannot think of a better example of sheer incompetence in foreign affairs than the handling of the Iraq war. We have alienated those nations closest to us in philosophy and culture, and have angered an entire generation of Islamic young men and women to no end other than to satisfy the dreams of a few neo-cons in the administration and the religious fantasizing of the President. That alone is sufficient reason to vote for almost anyone over George Bush. This administration, on the issue of war and peace, is simply incompetent, and cannot correct itself because it cannot admit that it has erred.
