Ted, good post.
You look at the facts... we've had a foreign terrorist attack on our soil only twice in our whole history, both carried out by the same villain. 90% of the world wide terrorist attacks in the years before and after 9/11 have been planned and executed by bin Laden's al Qaeda. This "war" could be better named a "war on al Qaeda", they are almost all of terrorism, period.
We had an opportunity to get bin Laden and and the rest of al Qaeda leadership at Tora Bora, to chase them down and eliminate them; but we didn't. That was the first, and most devastating, failure to decrease the danger to this country. That was when a "war" on terrorism might have worked, it would have actually made us "safer" from terrorism.
Now, with al Qaeda leadership spread throughout the world, we are forced into a defensive mode domestically, and a intelligence and police work mode worldwide. We can't send armies after terrorist cells of twenty to 100 people in some slum in Sudan or Paris, or New Jersey. What we need is not just cooperation between the CIA and FBI and the other US intelligence agencies; what we really need is a worldwide effort between all our allies to share intelligence, police work, and apprehension. We need a worldwide call to arms... but Bush has alienated our allies. When we really need leadership, we have none.
DR says: "A nuclear device detonated in Times Square isn't beyond the realm of possibility." It's the politics of fear. Nothing you can imagine is beyond the realm of possibility, including attacks on any one of our nuclear reactors, dropping anthrax from planes, blowing up the Golden Gate bridge, releasing a biological agent in the Mall of America; anything we can imagine. Every person and building in the world is a target. The "realm of possibility" is infinitely broad, and unworkable, except in the politics of fear.
Bush failed the only chance he had in the "military war" on terrorism at Tora Bora. Then used the "war on terror" as an excuse to go after Iraq, a long time neo target. An action that increased our risk by making us even more hated in the Muslim world, diverted resources and focus, and alienated our allies. Iraq is for the foreseeable future a breeding ground for terrorists. Bush has been a miserable failure in his own declared "war" on terrorism.
I'm sure you have read this quote before:
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." --Herman Goering, interview at Nuremberg Trials
John |
