War against Terror
THE WORLD
(01 Sep 02)

This is not an anti-war message.  This is an anti-stupidity message.  If war is absolutely necessary to prevent greater harm, we should support it.  If it is not necessary, if it is likely to produce more harm than good in the long term, then we would be stupid to urge or initiate it.  Before we start a war, we'd better know precisely what we're going to do, and how, and why, and what we'll do when (not if) things don't go as planned.  Wars always have unforeseen consequences, and you can bet that an unprovoked Western aggression in the Middle East would generate more than a few.

     Yes, terrorism is inexcusable, loathsome, and counterproductive to any legitimate human interest or ideal.  Terrorism is vigorously opposed by all civilized people, regardless of their political or religious beliefs.  To be effective, however, such opposition must be thoughtfully developed and judiciously applied; simply reacting impulsively to terrorism without a coherent plan of action can produce more harm than benefit.  Case in point:

     Stepping up the War Against Terrorism, U.S. President George W. Bush has proposed an international invasion of Iraq.  But although there might be some rationale for such action in the future, Bush's reasons for urging immediate aggression are less than convincing.  While Iraq is certainly a chronic annoyance, there is little hard evidence suggesting that it currently poses a serious threat beyond its borders, and international support for an invasion at this juncture is weak to non-existent.  At most, the U.S. could rely only upon the cooperation of a few Kurdish rebels in its effort to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.  Even some of Bush's own top advisors and military strategists counsel that military action under current circumstances could be harmful, perhaps even disastrous, to the overall interests of the United States and its allies.
     Heedless of these concerns, Bush presses his case, crying that the U.S. will "go it alone" if necessary, though how this could be managed without extreme difficulty and unacceptable loss is not at all apparent.  Moreover, it is not clear whether serious thought has been given to whatever regime might replace the current one; deposing a psychotic autocracy, only to have it succeeded by a fanatic theocracy, could very well be a step in the wrong direction.
     Such considerations evidently do not deter Bush.  His war frenzy causes him to be increasingly regarded as a loose cannon on deck, prompting foreign leaders, even those allied with the U.S. against terrorism and wary of the current Iraqi regime, to distance themselves from the "Cowboy President."  Without evidence of a clear and immediate threat or hostile action by Iraq, they perceive, military action is unjustified, and would precipitate drastic deterioration of already unstable Middle Eastern politics.
     Indeed, given the sudden inexplicable sense of urgency in the absence of a compelling objective and international support, there is justifiable speculation and concern about what Bush's real motive might be in attacking Iraq.  The possibilities range from implausible to laughable, from worrisome to damning.

     It is most unfortunate that such cynical questions arise, but this administration's history of political grandstanding, incoherent policy, and impulsive action oblige us to address such doubts before lives and fortunes are put at risk.  As motives for "preemptive" war against the Iraqi regime, the reasons which President Bush offers publicly seem overblown, contrived, fundamentally weak, and speculative:

     I do not mean to imply that these points are without truth or merit.  Some are undeniably true, and the rest might turn out to be true (if evidence should surface to convert them from speculation to fact) – if rather dated.  Still, in the absence of Iraqi aggression, are they really grounds for war?  For argument's sake, consider the same points, with a different country and head of state substituted:

     Now, I do not suggest that these points, by themselves and without evidence, constitute valid reasons for military invasion of any country.  But that is precisely the point:  If George W. Bush expects the world to buy such an argument for military action to depose the troublesome leader of Iraq, why should the world not accept the same argument as equal justification for the forcible overthrow of any other troublesome leader—even the President of the United States?  This appears to be one of those situations in which "Be careful what you ask for!" would be advice well worth considering.

     It would be wonderful if the American people could wholeheartedly support and trust their Chief Executive in a time of risk and peril.  It would be reassuring, if not comforting, if our President had presented a compelling case for his proposed war.  But instead of clear motives and realistic objectives, he has tossed out these fumbling excuses and rationalizations, undermining his own credibility rather than bolstering it.  Though he may whine about Congress, liberals, and the press, there is no one but himself to blame for the lack of public confidence.

     Yes, it is entirely possible that Saddam Hussein will turn out to possess weapons of mass destruction, that he poses an imminent threat, and that he will continue to defy the international community.  In that case, there may be no choice but to remove him from power by bloody force—and to hope that whatever regime replaces his won't be even worse.  But first, let us be sure of our facts, assemble a compelling case, present it to the world community, and acquire their cooperation and support, as well as the full understanding of the American people.  Perhaps parts of the world will remain unconvinced until madman Hussein actually moves against his neighbors, prompting them to call for aid.  If so, so be it; let any predicament be the result of their shortsightedness, not our hotheadedness.  Let us be patient, and resolve to do the right thing at the right time for the right reason.  That is the only winning solution, not only for America, but for all of mankind.  Let us plan and work—and yes, fight if absolutely necessary—for the clear purpose of a better and more civilized world for our children and grandchildren, not simply in mindless escalation of tribal warfare.

Postwar Assessment
(26 Oct 03)

Now that President Bush has declared the Iraq War officially over, and now that our forces have had a number of months to root out the "weapons of mass destruction," which were the administration's primary justification for military action, it appears as though those weapons—specifically biological, chemical, and nuclear—did not in fact exist.  Before the war, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld assured us that the Pentagon knew for certain, not only that Saddam Hussein had such weapons, but precisely where many of them were located.  It now looks as though Rumsfeld was dead wrong on both counts, and that the lives of Americans and their allies have been uprooted and sacrificed on the basis of trumped-up claims based on enmity and suspicion rather than credible evidence.

Still, we can say that a brutal regime has been removed.  Yet even here, the realities of Iraq's economy and technology, and the social attitudes of its people, have been grossly misread by an administration which apparently has no true grasp or appreciation of the vast differences between Western and Middle Eastern cultures and values.  The President, the Vice President, and the Defense Secretary apparently had conceived the notion that it would be a fairly simple and straightforward matter to march into Baghdad, remove the regime of Saddam Hussein, and install a Western-style democracy in its place, enthusiastically embraced by the Iraqi people, all within a matter of a few months.  Our leaders evidently failed to appreciate that, in destroying Iraq's existing regime, they would also lay waste its economic structure and its people's way of life, and they ignored that stabilization and preparation for self-government in a heavily factionalized Iraq would require at least many months, if not years.

Stung by reality, its rosy forecasts withering in the sand, and its cheeks flushed with embarrassment, the Bush administration is now eager to have the international community share the burden of relief and rebuilding.  Yet it balks at the idea of ceding control to the United Nations.  That the heavy damage to U.S. credibility is the natural consequence of the administration's own lack of candor apparently has not yet sunk in.  Under the circumstances, it is understandable that other nations are unwilling, essentially to commit their own personnel and resources to a dangerous situation under what they see as an untrustworthy U.S. authority.  So while Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld stubbornly demand to have it both ways, American and allied forces are still under fire, mired in a costly rebuilding effort, beset by growing public resentment, disorder, and sabotage, with only increasing debt as a means to pay for an operation that now appears to have been groundless, and with no clear plan for stabilization and exit.

This is one situation in which it would have been a joy to have to say, at this point, that my original assessment had been in error.  It would be wonderful if we could now say that our government did the right thing, that the Iraqi people have been relieved of a burden and are now clearly on the way toward stable self-government and a hopeful future, that the United States and its allies are welcomed as liberators and friends of the people, that the cause for which some gave their lives was imperative and just, and that the world is a safer and more peaceful place because of our sacrifice.

But I can't say that.  In its eagerness to pursue what, now more than ever, appears to have been a personal vendetta, to appear to be doing something worthwhile in the war against terrorism, and perhaps to distract attention from the continuing economic slump at home, the Bush administration seems to have used any excuse it could contrive to justify a little war that it believed it could neatly wrap up by election time.  In so doing, it has abused the trust of its citizens, its service men and women, its current allies, and potential allies in the Middle East.  It has set the dangerous precedent for the United States to invade, without international consensus, any country whose leader it doesn't like, and has mired our military in a situation costly in terms not only of money and resources, but also of lives.  Although we can always hope and trust that eventually the situation will improve, it is becoming evident that such improvement will not likely occur as a result of informed and thoughtful action by the current administration.

=SAJ=

To be continued, unfortunately...

Decisively and Resolutely Wrong:
Zero Credibility, $120 Billion, 1,000 Dead, and Counting…
(08 Sep 04)
[Material in navy blue has been added or modified since original publication of this item.]

As political party conventions have passed, campaigns intensify, and the fall election approaches, the Bush administration is attempting to bolster the idea that decisive and resolute leadership is needed in the continuing war against terrorism—and also to nurture an impression that George W. Bush is decisive and resolute, but his opponent John F. Kerry is not.  However, we would be fooling ourselves to assume that decisiveness and resolve by themselves are all-important, without considering such crucial questions as whether these qualities are founded upon fact or fiction.  If, for example, we decide that it is possible to run through a solid concrete wall, and if we resolve to demonstrate this by running headlong into the wall again and again, we will merely demonstrate that our bloody decisiveness and resolve are misplaced, that they inevitably lead, not to our glorious success, but to our own misery and embarrassment.  Unfortunately, it would appear that this is in essence what George W. Bush has done, and stubbornly continues to do, in his furious vendetta against Saddam Hussein.

To be sure, the Bush administration began the war against terrorism in good faith and backed by solid intelligence.  Daily reports made it clear that the Taliban had forcibly taken control of Afghanistan, and that the regime actively supported al Qaeda's terrorist training camps within its borders.  The allied invasion of Afghanistan was well conceived and equipped, and had the active and unreserved support of most nations, as well as of a plurality of the Afghan people.

But just as we glimpsed the light at the end of the tunnel in Afghanistan, just as it appeared that, with perseverance, the terrorists would be driven out and the country returned to legitimate domestic authority, the Bush administration pulled a switch that diverted attention and resources from the task at hand.  Commencing in late 2002, a concentrated effort was made to show that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was an intolerable bad guy; that he either possessed or was in the process of acquiring chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons of mass destruction; and that he was operating in collusion with terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, and furnishing them resources and weapons.

The first point, that Saddam was a bad guy, was never in question; his earlier aggression in Kuwait was still fresh in most people's memories, and his brutal torture and murder of people in Iraq itself was well known.  However, any notion that his regime had ever posed a threat outside Iraq since the Gulf War, or that it was collaborating with Islamic terrorists, was not supported by any reliable evidence.  Nevertheless, Team Bush cobbled together a case from outdated (often pre-1990) intelligence, speculation, and misinformation obtained from "friendly" sources (e.g., Chalabi and others), who were happy to tell the administration whatever it wanted to hear—in return for an agreeable sum, of course.  The Bush administration then sent Secretary of State Powell to the U.N. to make the case for invasion, based on this artfully cooked "intelligence," and managed to win some support.  This time, however, a majority of nations, apparently aware through their own intelligence sources that the basis of Bush's case against Saddam Hussein as an imminent threat was extremely flimsy, expressed strong skepticism.  Howling that the U.S. would "go it alone if necessary," Bush sent the same bogus information to Congress, and won approval to launch an unprecedented "preemptive" attack against Iraq.  However...

• As it turns out (and to the surprise of virtually no one in the intelligence community, whose repeated warnings the White House resolutely chose to disregard), Iraq has had no weapons of mass destruction, nor any hope of obtaining them, since international inspections following the Gulf War.
• As it turns out, the report of Iraq's request to import uranium from Africa was bogus.
• As it turns out, the aluminum tubes ostensibly for enriching uranium were not suitable for that purpose, but were actually components of conventional weaponry.
• As it turns out, what were conjectured to be mobile WMD factories were just hydrogen generators.
• As it turns out, the only "communication" between the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda was that Saddam Hussein had flatly refused to offer any support to the terrorist fanatics.

Statements by numerous current and former intelligence agents confirm that the Bush administration not only built its case for aggression almost entirely upon outdated and speculative "intelligence," while deliberately omitting or distorting evidence to the contrary.  It had knowingly presented false information to Congress—a felony—and misled both the American public and foreign leaders—an unscrupulous breach of faith and abuse of office, and directly contrary to Bush's 2000 campaign pledge to restore credibility and honor to government.

No one can dispute that the Bush administration has been "decisive and resolute" in its pursuit of this objective.  Indeed, it has refused to be deterred in its zealous crusade even by incontrovertible fact.  The clear results of such decisive resolve based on fiction?

• The pollyanna notions, that the war would be short and painless, that the invaders would be welcomed as liberators, that Iraq's many fanatical factions would spontaneously embrace democracy, and that its oil production would easily pay for the country's reconstruction, were all proven false.
• Indeed, it is now evident that the Bush administration knew the prospects beforehand, but chose to ignore them.  A CIA report, issued well before the Iraq war, clearly projected widespread factional violence, regional instability, and the rise of Islamist fanatics to prominence, as by far the most probable outcome of the removal of Saddam Hussein from power.  This report was cavalierly dismissed as "just guessing,"—even as Team Bush was busily fabricating a fanciful case for invasion, from information it had been emphatically and repeatedly warned was outdated and dubious. [29 Sep 04]
• In pursuit of an overblown bogeyman, and the neoconservative notion that "freedom" can be imposed, U.S. military power has been drastically overextended, leaving those who depend upon it more vulnerable than ever to real threats.
• However, having created a quagmire, Team Bush belatedly (but correctly, for once) realizes that pulling out would make matters even worse.  So even if we hadn't been committed before, now we're stuck.
• Though Iraq posed no real threat before, the breakdown of order following the invasion has now made it a breeding ground for terrorist groups.
• Even the administration's hindsight justification for the war—that the world is a safer place now that Saddam Hussein's regime has been removed—has evaporated in light of subsequent developments.
• The credibility of the United States, to its enemies and its allies alike, has been severely weakened, if not utterly destroyed.  The future ability of the Bush administration to rally broad international support is now in serious question.
• More than a thousand Americans have been killed, and thousands more wounded, with no end in sight (the gleeful "Mission Accomplished" proclamation notwithstanding), in a conflict that was completely unnecessary.

Following the Republican convention, President Bush finally confessed publicly that he had "miscalculated" the post-war situation in Iraq.  (Now there's an understatement!)  The unvarnished facts are that his cadre exhibited horrendous ignorance of Middle Eastern culture, tradition, thought, belief, and attitudes at the outset, and that their plan of action was thus based primarily on fiction and guesswork, mixed with more than a little old fashioned vengeance and greed.  Granted, wars are usually very complex, but some basic rules still apply: If you start your planning with nonsense, then nonsense is what you're bound to end up with.  So the Bush regime finally admits "miscalculating," yet so far there is no hint of imminent alterations.  Perhaps they fear that might be seen as a "flip-flop," a "waffle," a lack of decisiveness and resolve, maybe even—heaven forbid—a mark of thoughtful maturity.  And we know that doesn't play in Texas.  But it's still early; we'll wait and see.

No one questions that the U.S. must be decisive and resolute in its war against terrorism.  Yet neither is there any question that the leaders of al Qaeda are likewise decisive and resolute in their quest.  But all people of good will are morally obliged to question the basis of decisive resolve, whenever its premises are in doubt, its methods flawed, and its results destructive.  Decisive resolve without intelligent direction and constructive purpose is nothing more than blind fanaticism. [29 Sep 04]  As the world's only remaining superpower, America has the obligation to decide and resolve to act responsibly and in accord with reality, solid evidence, and principle—not on wishful thinking built on a foundation of willful fabrication and deceit.  Any entity that has established a clear and repeated pattern of deliberately disregarding valid evidence, and of distorting and misusing outdated and questionable information to contrive bogus policies with life-and-death consequences for thousands or millions, is clearly a not a force for peace, stability, democracy, and justice.  Such an entity is in fact directly opposed to each and every one of those noble aims.  Painful though it might be for us to admit, we cannot escape that this general rule applies as much to fanatics in our own government as to the fanatics they purportedly oppose.  Two wrongs do not make a right.  The cure for blind fanaticism is not more blind fanaticism.  And the war against terrorism can not be won by any faction that fails to grasp this fundamental concept. [29 Sep 04]

Acting on solid evidence, the United States of America can be as confidently decisive and resolute as that evidence justifies.  In contrast, acting impulsively on misinformation, the American superpower becomes a loose cannon, potentially a far worse menace to global peace and security than the petty despot Saddam Hussein could ever have dreamed of being.  Yet this is the path chosen by Team Bush, in its blind pursuit of a neoconservative distortion of reality, which has been repeatedly shown to be false, and whose consequences are potentially catastrophic.  Not only for our own sake, but for the sake of the entire civilized world, Americans must decide and resolve to do better than this.

While we cannot faultlessly predict what pitfalls might lie in the path proposed by John F. Kerry, at least we may reasonably hope that he would decide to evaluate all evidence critically, and that he would resolve to adjust policy to the facts whenever necessary—as intelligent and competent leaders are expected to do.  We know from bitter experience that the trail blazed by George W. Bush, evidently detached from reality and with little if any regard for the facts, is blindly suicidal in today's world.  Knowing this, and with genuine concern for the welfare of our troops, our nation, and our world, we would be foolish not to change course at the earliest opportunity.

As time has passed since the original article on this page was posted in 2002, I have been hoping against hope that my earlier evaluations and predictions, horribly fantastic as they might have seemed at first, would ultimately turn out to be in error.  But alas, it seems instead that they have been borne out.  If this September 2004 segment is where you came in, I invite you to peruse the previous installments of this series.

As thoughtful Americans contemplate going to the polls in November, they are rightfully concerned about terrorism.  They should be equally concerned about the forces that spawn and sustain it, as well as diversionary impulses that squander resources needed to combat it, and policies that alienate potential allies in the effort. [29 Sep 04]  And so they ought to ponder the following questions most seriously: 

If four years of naïve bone-headedness masquerading as "decisive resolve" got us into this quagmire, is it likely that four more years of the same naïve bone-headedness will get us out?
Or deeper in?

=SAJ=

When the Iraqis called the President of the United States "an idiot," was your immediate gut reaction "Oh yeah?" ...or "Yeah, so?"

It is a discouraging sign that, instead of anger, the insult triggers an impulse to reflect wryly upon parallels between the Bush presidency and a Marx Brothers comedy.  In the 1930s film, Duck Soup, Groucho Marx portrays Rufus T. Firefly, an imbecilic despot who leads his country to war over a trumped-up triviality.  (When the film was released, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini regarded it as a deliberate and direct insult to himself.  And he was right!)

Certainly, Bush is no Mussolini.  (Mussolini had better language skills, for one thing.)  But ironically, we can see more than a hint of the "Rufus T. Firefly" character in both George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein.  Indeed, there are times when one wonders whether refugees from the old Marx Brothers writing staff are composing the scripts for both American and Iraqi administrations, complete with absurd situations and inane dialogue.  If so, we might wish for a few "Hidey-ho!" lines, just to remind everyone (especially the characters) that it's all just in fun.

If only it were!