Bush and the War on Terror
Bush has woefully underfunded domestic security upgrades while committing us for at least $1 trillion -- and more likely $2 trillion, according to Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz -- to fight the war in Iraq.
TOM MAERTENS
Millions of words have already been written about Osama bin Laden's most recent communication: What does this mean? Is he really planning to attack the U.S. again? Is it a coded message to sleeper cells?
Using Occam's Razor -- the simplest explanation that will cover the facts -- let's remember that bin Laden sees himself as the global leader of the anti-US jihad, and that he hadn't been heard from in a year. You can't be a global leader of anything if your supporters don't know whether you are alive or dead. So bin Laden needs to make periodic TV appearances to maintain his role as godfather of Islamic terrorism.
Once bin Laden decides it's time to pop up on al Jazeera, what should he say? How about, "Let's everybody attack the Great Satan; I know I'm planning to."
And what else? Maybe an assertion that bin Laden is a good, peace-loving Muslim sorely provoked to violence by somebody else's evil actions, combined with a truce proposal that supports this image and reminds followers of his previous list of grievances. (He must know that Great Powers don't negotiate with terrorist groups: it would put them on an equal footing in the public's eyes.)
As for coded messages to sleeper cells, anybody ever heard of the Internet? They don't need coded messages when they can use encrypted messages to chat rooms or other innocuous Web sites.
So bin Laden's goal may be nothing more than keeping his name before the faithful, some of whom may be inspired to blow up something as a result.
Has the threat increased? The reality is that al Qaeda and its clones have continually plotted terrorist actions since 9/11, some of which succeeded (Madrid, London, Morocco, Bali, others) and some of which failed (France, Italy, Malaysia, Jordan, and others).
At present, nobody knows the exact role of bin Laden in each of those bombings, if any, but at minimum, his call to jihad has inspired Islamic extremists around the world.
Predicting the future is much like forecasting the weather. If you predict that tomorrow will be just like today, you will be right 90% of the time. So we can expect intermittent attacks.
The other big winner in bin Laden's threat was the Bush administration, which immediately seized on his message to defend its domestic spying program, and to declare that the War on Terror would be its principal election issue.
That's not a surprise. Bush has been very effective at exploiting the terrorism issue, starting with the bullhorn moment that caused many to overlook the fact that 9/11 constituted an epic failure by the Bush administration. He and Cheney could as easily have been portrayed as the goats. For example, Cheney was in charge of the government's interagency task force on counterterrorism that never met before 9/11.
During the last election, terrorism was Bush's trump card. Every time the administration issued another alert, Bush's popularity jumped three points in the polls, so Homeland Security Czar Tom Ridge, Attorney-General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Mueller issued terrorism warnings every month leading up to the elections. Ridge later acknowledged that the alerts were not warranted by the intelligence. (In contrast, there was only one terrorism alert for all of 2005, having to do with a computer virus. See, Bush made us safer.)
But are we really safer? Bush has woefully underfunded domestic security upgrades while committing us for at least $1 trillion -- and more likely $2 trillion, according to Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz -- to fight the war in Iraq. Our cities, ports, power plants, nuclear and natural gas facilities have not received the security improvements they need because the money went down an Iraqi rat hole.
Meanwhile abroad, thanks to the Bush administration's de facto recruitment drive in Iraq, there are now more terrorists than ever before. The security situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, the Taliban appear to be taking over the 500-mile long border area of Pakistan, and the Bush administration is preparing for a confrontation with Iran.
Bush may be adept at exploiting the terrorist threat for domestic political purposes, but that is not the same as winning the War on Terror.
TOM MAERTENS
Millions of words have already been written about Osama bin Laden's most recent communication: What does this mean? Is he really planning to attack the U.S. again? Is it a coded message to sleeper cells?
Using Occam's Razor -- the simplest explanation that will cover the facts -- let's remember that bin Laden sees himself as the global leader of the anti-US jihad, and that he hadn't been heard from in a year. You can't be a global leader of anything if your supporters don't know whether you are alive or dead. So bin Laden needs to make periodic TV appearances to maintain his role as godfather of Islamic terrorism.
Once bin Laden decides it's time to pop up on al Jazeera, what should he say? How about, "Let's everybody attack the Great Satan; I know I'm planning to."
And what else? Maybe an assertion that bin Laden is a good, peace-loving Muslim sorely provoked to violence by somebody else's evil actions, combined with a truce proposal that supports this image and reminds followers of his previous list of grievances. (He must know that Great Powers don't negotiate with terrorist groups: it would put them on an equal footing in the public's eyes.)
As for coded messages to sleeper cells, anybody ever heard of the Internet? They don't need coded messages when they can use encrypted messages to chat rooms or other innocuous Web sites.
So bin Laden's goal may be nothing more than keeping his name before the faithful, some of whom may be inspired to blow up something as a result.
Has the threat increased? The reality is that al Qaeda and its clones have continually plotted terrorist actions since 9/11, some of which succeeded (Madrid, London, Morocco, Bali, others) and some of which failed (France, Italy, Malaysia, Jordan, and others).
At present, nobody knows the exact role of bin Laden in each of those bombings, if any, but at minimum, his call to jihad has inspired Islamic extremists around the world.
Predicting the future is much like forecasting the weather. If you predict that tomorrow will be just like today, you will be right 90% of the time. So we can expect intermittent attacks.
The other big winner in bin Laden's threat was the Bush administration, which immediately seized on his message to defend its domestic spying program, and to declare that the War on Terror would be its principal election issue.
That's not a surprise. Bush has been very effective at exploiting the terrorism issue, starting with the bullhorn moment that caused many to overlook the fact that 9/11 constituted an epic failure by the Bush administration. He and Cheney could as easily have been portrayed as the goats. For example, Cheney was in charge of the government's interagency task force on counterterrorism that never met before 9/11.
During the last election, terrorism was Bush's trump card. Every time the administration issued another alert, Bush's popularity jumped three points in the polls, so Homeland Security Czar Tom Ridge, Attorney-General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Mueller issued terrorism warnings every month leading up to the elections. Ridge later acknowledged that the alerts were not warranted by the intelligence. (In contrast, there was only one terrorism alert for all of 2005, having to do with a computer virus. See, Bush made us safer.)
But are we really safer? Bush has woefully underfunded domestic security upgrades while committing us for at least $1 trillion -- and more likely $2 trillion, according to Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz -- to fight the war in Iraq. Our cities, ports, power plants, nuclear and natural gas facilities have not received the security improvements they need because the money went down an Iraqi rat hole.
Meanwhile abroad, thanks to the Bush administration's de facto recruitment drive in Iraq, there are now more terrorists than ever before. The security situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, the Taliban appear to be taking over the 500-mile long border area of Pakistan, and the Bush administration is preparing for a confrontation with Iran.
Bush may be adept at exploiting the terrorist threat for domestic political purposes, but that is not the same as winning the War on Terror.
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home