More on Post-9/11 Five Year Assessments
As the Bush administration markets its post-9/11 five year assessment, two points to go along with those made by Ernie, Juliette, Ivo and others.
One is the Rumsfeld terrorism metric. I keep coming back to this because it’s the set of criteria the Bush administration defined for themselves not ones imposed on it by critics. ”Every day,” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said back in October 2003, we need to ask ourselves, “are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists than the radical clerics and madrassas are recruiting, training and deploying against us?” Do the two column accounting. Be fair about what does deserve to go in the credits column. But be honest about what goes in the debits column. The balance is a negative one.
The other is the issue that the Bush administration is so earnestly trying to take out of the accounting: Iraq.
I was part of a panel last week with current and former Bush officials. The “mistakes were made” argument was offered– in itself that very telling third-person passive phrasing. And statements like admittedly, it hasn’t gone as well as planned. And some flaws in the implementation but still the right and strategic thing to have done.
A pretty big issue to try to move to the miscellaneous costs, unaccounted for expenses column.
For President Bush and administration neo-conservatives, Iraq never was really just about Iraq. The removal of Saddam Hussein was to be a demonstration of American power; the birthing of Iraqi democracy a manifestation of American principles. The message would go out throughout the Middle East that the United States was intent on remaking the region as less roguish and more democratic. And globally whatever doubts may still have been out there about American primacy, whether about our will or our capacity, would be dispelled. The United States was #1. It would lead. Others needed to follow, or get out of the way.
President Bush was right about one thing. Iraq has had a demonstration effect --- largely, though, the opposite of what was intended. It has shown the limits of American power. It has drawn into doubt American commitment to the principles espoused. It has prompted some key states to balance against American power. It has fed much questioning of just how benign our hegemony is. It has left American global leadership in tatters.
While the President may be correct in his analysis that the war on terrorism is expanding to other regions, he fails to see that his approach to the issue...particularly his decision to invade Iraq and the fact that progress in the troubled country seems elusive...may well be creating the new threats. Further, as he heightens his rhetoric in order to win votes by inferring that the origin of these extremists is Islam, he foments more animosity in more countries and the terrorism equation keeps growing.
If we concede that the President is sincerely motivated...and I might be inclined to concede as much...it nonetheless doesn't make him right. Additionally, if his approach is wrong and it is actually inciting more terrorists, then his convictions simply amplify the problem and diminish the potential for him to chart a new course. In the end, his rhetoric may well be more dangerous if it is sincere...but one cannot argue that his recent remarks aren't political. The fact that his politics stem from his ideology is no comfort to the many Americans that simply reject his conclusions. In fact, that merely makes it all the more important to counter his politics.
It’s easy to see that the President's politics is, like the terrorists, an ideology. The problem that presents is that it is heard by the opposing extremists as a desire to impose that ideology...not to simply extinguish terrorism. In that subtlety, Islamists who might otherwise oppose the activities of terrorists are drawn into the battle as they feel their way of life is being threatened...and one would be hard pressed to assure them otherwise. For a President who made it a point prior to his initial election to distance himself from the notion of nation building, he has now become the very thing that bin Laden and his ilk felt existed prior to 9/11...that the leader of Western Civilization was bent on exporting it to the entire world.
Read more here:
www.thoughttheater.com
September 7, 2006 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
A disaster. An unmitigated entirely predicted and predictable disaster. A disaster that exposed American weakness and that really ends the American bid for hegemony. Fortunately it exposed some of the idiots occupying positions of power and respect in the foreign policy analyst department. But the cost of this fiasco will be a generation working its way through the American economy; we will have markedly increased social unrest and division for twenty years. Remember the Beinarts, the Liebermans, the Wittmans responsible for this mess. The Wolfowitz' and Kristols, and Feith's , and Hitchens' and Ignatieff's. All of the smug, self-important, arrogant fools.
September 7, 2006 9:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Striking the balance between these two goods (humane treatment, foreknowledge of deadly attacks) is difficult, but the Bush administration seems to lean too far in the direction of the detainees.
No expense spared for al Qaeda health care: Some 5,000 dental operations (including teeth cleanings) and 5,000 vaccinations on a total of 550 detainees have been performed since 2002 - all at taxpayer expense. Eyeglasses? 174 pairs handed out. Twenty two detainees have taxpayer-paid prosthetic limbs. And so on.
America has never faced an enemy who has so ruthlessly broken all of the rules of war - yet never has an enemy been treated so well.
Of Gitmo's several camps, military records show that the one with the most lenient rules is the one with the most incidents and vice versa.
There is a lesson in this: We should worry less about detainee safety and more about our own.
September 16, 2006 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink