Okay, sure.
“Two years ago, I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts in many places. Iraq is now the central front.”
— George Bush
“Don’t you tell me not to worry about bin Laden
Have you forgotten?”
— Darryl Worley
For the record: no, I haven’t forgotten. I remember quite distinctly where I was and what I was feeling that day. I remember thinking that we needed to find the people responsible and do something about it. I still think that. I hope that, someday, we remember that Osama bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks. I hope that the White House will someday devote some time to reminding people who our enemy was and is.
We are fighting a war built on lies. Bush took 9/11 and turned it into an excuse for carrying out a plan he’d built well before that tragic day. As a result, our military is overextended and our world credibility is slipping. We are unable to reduce the North Korean threat; only this week we’ve learned that they’ve developed longer range missiles sufficient to reach the heartland of America.
We are not winning the war in Afghanistan. We’re certainly not losing, and the Taliban isn’t in power, but until the country is stable I don’t see how we can claim to have won. We have a smattering of troops in that country, because there aren’t any more available. Contrary to pre-war claims, Iraq really has consumed all of our available military strength.
I remember that we have provided Osama bin Laden with an opportunity to do something he could not do in the year after 9/11: namely, kill Americans. By putting our troops in Iraq, we have provided him with targets he could not have otherwise reached. Consider this. Between 9/11 and the occupation of Iraq, there were no American deaths at the hands of Al Qaeda. Since Bush declared combat operations over, we’re seeing terrorists killing Americans on a weekly basis.
But has Bush forgotten all this? Apparently so.
One Comment
I guess my observations are:
1. Has there *ever* been a time in history when Afghanistan could be considered “stable”? I’d be happy with just denying al Qaeda bases there and for the people there to have more freedom, like education for women, than they had under the Taliban. That’s my defintion of “winning” there. Given the strength of the tribal system in A. and in north Pakistan, a strong central government probably will never take hold there, nor should we expect it to.
2. Considering the way the military was trimmed back during the “peace dividend” years of the ’90s, it should be no surprise that it is overextended now. Those two divisions which were disbanded would sure come in handy now.
3. “Why should we develop ballistic missile defenses when someone can just float a bomb in the harbor?” went the old argument against SDI. Well…
4. Folks who hate the United States to the point of flying airplanes into skyscrapers and strapping a bomb onto themselves are going to find a way to kill Americans one way or another, and as was the case in Afghanistan, I’d rather have them trying to take on armed and trained military people rather than civilians.
As the Tom Friedman line goes, some things are right even if GWB is the one doing it.