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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DavesM who wrote (447841)	8/26/2003 1:12:14 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

DavesM, the position you take is a defensible one. There's no question that the Bin Ladin fundamentalists of the world have a deep and abiding hatred for the west and, in particular, the culture, religion and political freedoms of the west. Although the rallying cry is "not in Arab lands," I'm sure that given the power to enforce their fundamentalist views their choice would be no western values anywhere. If they weren't objecting to sanctions against Iraq or our presence in Saudi Arabia or other Arab countries, they would be able to find some other real or imagined abuse by "infidels." With the advent of worldwide television coverage their borders are no longer secure from the western influences that so offend their sense of culture, faith and values. The basis upon which I base my belief that the key which unlocked the 9/11 tragedy was the failure of the U.S. to adopt and voice an Israeli/Palestinian strategy, is that the Saudis and all of the other Arab countries were incensed at our cavalier attitude about the horrible acts that were occurring in Palestinian territory. While an argument can be made that those acts were retaliatory for the terrorist acts occurring in Israel, the pictures on Arab television of men, women and children dying on the streets at the hands of uniformed Israelis left little room for sympathy for the Israelis or America which they correctly viewed as the military and economic sponser of Israel. When Bush campaigned on a "not our problem" policy with respect to the conflict and, astoundingly, adopted that posture post-election, it left the Sharon-led Israelis free to use whatever force THEY felt reasonable and that turned out to be considerable. As I've written before, with his financial support, his religious support, and with his family and many of his followers based in Saudi Arabia, it's not credible to assume that the Saudis had not adopted a "hands off" policy with respect to Bin Ladin and Al Queda. In return, I think it's credible to assume that the Saudis had some marginal control over Bin Ladin. If they exercised that control to impliedly reign in Bin Ladin, that restraint was lifted in the month before 9/11. In August the Suadis became so incensed with the lack of a Bush Administration response to the Israeli actions in Palestinian territory that they sent a letter informing Bush of their decision to immediately evict American forces from Saudi bases and to convene an Arab summit to deal with the Israeli conflict. It was only after Bush replied and informed the Saudis that we did, in fact, have a policy and outlined the Clinton Administrations policy as his own, that the Saudis cooled off. That was in the few days before 9/11 and I think the Twin Towers plan had already been set in motion. I don't think this action would have been approved unless Bin Ladin had been advised that the Arab world had no objection to taking the terrorist action to Americans in America. We'd have had a presence in the Arab peninsula even without Iraq. If we hadn't had bases in Saudi Arabia, we would surely have had bases in other Arab countries. Every U.S. president in modern times has understood the importance of maintaining a strong military presence offshore and onshore in the Persian Gulf region. It's not for the protection of the peoples of the region but rather to protect vital American interests in the control of the oil reserves and production in the region. With our military presence we have propped up governments that were oil friendly and discouraged other nations from perching. Our presence also represents a threat to opec countries and reminds them that they price and pump because we allow it. In the final analysis, as we've recently demonstrated, if we don't like the way things work over there we have the option of changing the rules through the use of force. I think that taking out Saddam Hussein THROUGH INVASION AND OCCUPATION was seen as a shortcut that allowed us to do directly what we had done indirectly over the years; that is to create a physical presence perched over a huge amount of the oil in the region. A physical presence that had no diplomatic strings attached, that had no limits, that would allow for a bigger, better situated and permanent presence that would be so strong that the Arab world, the Chinese and any other rival nation of region would understand that finally and irrevocably we control the immensely strategic oil reserves of the Middle East. Regardless of the moral ramifications of that action, there were risks and costs and we are seeing those more and more clearly. Our actions are seen worldwide as a power grab. They have created fear and stimulated an arms race among those nations that suspect that they might someday be in our sights. They have created worldwide animosity for Americans and made it more difficult for Americans to travel throughout the world in safety. They have minimized the U.N. which held some hope of one day creating and enforcing international laws to reign in rogue nations while reducing the chance of unwarranted aggression by the more powerful. They have created a no-mans land in Iraq where the situation is so volatile that with one incident the whole nation may turn against us violently. They have left our men and women in Iraq facing a guerrilla war and no effective means to fight it. And, in the end, they may have left us worse off if we have to leave. Worse off in terms of the number and locations where terrorists are supported. Worse off in the number of Arabs that passionately view America and Americans as the enemy with the kind of hatred that creates terrorists. And worse off because when we had the chance to show the world that, unlike prior superpower nations, we could be trusted with power, we showed them that we could not. Maybe a defensible argument could be made that the culture and antipathy of the Arab world to the West is so great, and the oil is so important in shaping the political and economic face of the world, that some degree of force there was justified? Maybe not, but the fact is that someone made that choice for us, decided the method and manner of its application, and sold it to us based on distortions and exaggerations. In the process they've also undermined the press and individual freedoms, and in so doing they have subverted democracy. That's, under any definition, a travesty.