A Struggle, Not a War
We Need to Change the Way We Deal With Terrorism
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
9/11 did not change everything. Most things are the same. Although 9/11 was a horrific event, the time has come to reassess our reaction to it. Friends, we overreacted. The fact is, there is no pressing need for a war against terror. Calling the conflict we have with terrorists a war is problematic for a number of reasons. First, it allowed President Bush to get financial and military backing to invade and occupy Iraq. Second, it allowed the military and the CIA to use the war to detain and hold prisoners without rights and beyond this, to engage in the torture, rape and murder of prisoners. Third, it has led to the loss of American freedom through the enactment of the Patriot Act.
It is now obvious that President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condaleezza Rice and a number of other members of the Bush Administration used 9/11 as a pretext to carry out their plans to invade and occupy Iraq. We now know there were no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was never a direct threat to the United States. We invaded Iraq in order to overthrow Saddam Hussein, install a western style democratic government and ensure the flow of oil and the stability of the Middle East with the long-term presence of American troops. President Bush, never a geopolitical strategist came onboard because of a combination of personal, idealistic, and political reasons. Hussein had, after all, attempted to kill his dad. In addition to getting revenge, G.W. would be finishing off first Gulf War. Our President Bush also loved the neo-conservative idea of installing a capitalist democracy in Iraq. Finally, from his point of view, our going into Iraq was more than a personal crusade, it had religious underpinnings. We were Christian soldiers marching into the land of the heathens. Astute Bush knew this would sit well with his political base.
The neo-cons operate under a delusion that Bush must have found irresistibly appealing. The US is the lone superpower today in the world and we have the capability and the know-how to do pretty much whatever we want. Therefore, it is our duty to police the planet and to bring to those less fortunate than ourselves, our splendid way of life. There is nothing new about this theory. The Greeks, The Romans, The Spanish, The French and the British all believed it when they were in power, and they all ran into the same problems we’re running into in Iraq. The world is a little more complex than we’d like to think it is and a number of people do not feel exactly the same way we do.
Among the unintended consequences of invading and occupying Iraq is that rather than defeating terrorism as Bush claims, we have (as Rumsfeld admitted) created new terrorists. Our actions have helped Al Qaeda. In fact, it may be exactly what Bin Laden hoped for. After all, the attack on the World Trade Center was carried out by a small number of terrorists. Partly because of our lack of readiness, it was wildly successful. An attack of that magnitude is unlikely to occur again. What we are more likely to face are, at worst, attacks like the one carried out in Spain or, more likely, the type that occur almost daily in Iraq.
Characterizing our conflict with terrorism as a war has had other ill effects. It has allowed the government and the military to engage in acts that may be routine in a war but are otherwise unacceptable. We have detained prisoners of war in Guatanamo Bay without following the Geneva Convention. We keep prisoners hooded and shackled. They face a military tribunal. We have also tortured, raped and murdered prisoners in the very same prison used by Saddam Hussein. Again, this helps rather than hinders the cause of Al Qaeda.
Declaring war on terrorism has had a negative effect on freedom in our own country as well. Under the powers of the Patriot Act the government has arrested and detained American citizens without according them any rights whatsoever. And since we are at war, the Bush administration accuses anyone who questions this “war” of aiding and the abetting the enemy and of not being a patriot. Finally, calling this a war, the government has enforced various levels of censorship in media coverage of their actions. From embedding reporters with the military and then limiting their access to information, to forbidding the photographing of coffins, to not releasing figures on Iraqi dead and injured, the Bush Administration has used this war to curb freedoms at home.
A candidate running against Bush should make it clear that he plans to put in place a new, rational, balanced cooperative foreign policy in which we view the conflict with terrorists as an ongoing struggle rather than a war. Seeing it this way will enable us to deal with these groups with the CIA who will work in concert with the intelligence organizations of our allies. Military force is always an option but such power should be used wisely and selectively taking advantage of our high tech weaponry and our highly trained and mobile forces.
Terrorism is just one of many problems we face today. There is Afghanistan. There’s North Korea. Then there’s Africa. There’s global warming and a looming energy crises. Bin Laden may call for a gihad against the West but most Muslims care more about their own problems than they do about us. In the sixties we had a war on poverty, in the eighties we had the war on drugs. Now we have the war on terror. Evidently we like to think of these struggles as wars but that doesn’t help us to solve these problems and today, characterizing our struggle with terrorism as a war is creating more problems than it is solving.
It is now obvious that President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condaleezza Rice and a number of other members of the Bush Administration used 9/11 as a pretext to carry out their plans to invade and occupy Iraq. We now know there were no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was never a direct threat to the United States. We invaded Iraq in order to overthrow Saddam Hussein, install a western style democratic government and ensure the flow of oil and the stability of the Middle East with the long-term presence of American troops. President Bush, never a geopolitical strategist came onboard because of a combination of personal, idealistic, and political reasons. Hussein had, after all, attempted to kill his dad. In addition to getting revenge, G.W. would be finishing off first Gulf War. Our President Bush also loved the neo-conservative idea of installing a capitalist democracy in Iraq. Finally, from his point of view, our going into Iraq was more than a personal crusade, it had religious underpinnings. We were Christian soldiers marching into the land of the heathens. Astute Bush knew this would sit well with his political base.
The neo-cons operate under a delusion that Bush must have found irresistibly appealing. The US is the lone superpower today in the world and we have the capability and the know-how to do pretty much whatever we want. Therefore, it is our duty to police the planet and to bring to those less fortunate than ourselves, our splendid way of life. There is nothing new about this theory. The Greeks, The Romans, The Spanish, The French and the British all believed it when they were in power, and they all ran into the same problems we’re running into in Iraq. The world is a little more complex than we’d like to think it is and a number of people do not feel exactly the same way we do.
Among the unintended consequences of invading and occupying Iraq is that rather than defeating terrorism as Bush claims, we have (as Rumsfeld admitted) created new terrorists. Our actions have helped Al Qaeda. In fact, it may be exactly what Bin Laden hoped for. After all, the attack on the World Trade Center was carried out by a small number of terrorists. Partly because of our lack of readiness, it was wildly successful. An attack of that magnitude is unlikely to occur again. What we are more likely to face are, at worst, attacks like the one carried out in Spain or, more likely, the type that occur almost daily in Iraq.
Characterizing our conflict with terrorism as a war has had other ill effects. It has allowed the government and the military to engage in acts that may be routine in a war but are otherwise unacceptable. We have detained prisoners of war in Guatanamo Bay without following the Geneva Convention. We keep prisoners hooded and shackled. They face a military tribunal. We have also tortured, raped and murdered prisoners in the very same prison used by Saddam Hussein. Again, this helps rather than hinders the cause of Al Qaeda.
Declaring war on terrorism has had a negative effect on freedom in our own country as well. Under the powers of the Patriot Act the government has arrested and detained American citizens without according them any rights whatsoever. And since we are at war, the Bush administration accuses anyone who questions this “war” of aiding and the abetting the enemy and of not being a patriot. Finally, calling this a war, the government has enforced various levels of censorship in media coverage of their actions. From embedding reporters with the military and then limiting their access to information, to forbidding the photographing of coffins, to not releasing figures on Iraqi dead and injured, the Bush Administration has used this war to curb freedoms at home.
A candidate running against Bush should make it clear that he plans to put in place a new, rational, balanced cooperative foreign policy in which we view the conflict with terrorists as an ongoing struggle rather than a war. Seeing it this way will enable us to deal with these groups with the CIA who will work in concert with the intelligence organizations of our allies. Military force is always an option but such power should be used wisely and selectively taking advantage of our high tech weaponry and our highly trained and mobile forces.
Terrorism is just one of many problems we face today. There is Afghanistan. There’s North Korea. Then there’s Africa. There’s global warming and a looming energy crises. Bin Laden may call for a gihad against the West but most Muslims care more about their own problems than they do about us. In the sixties we had a war on poverty, in the eighties we had the war on drugs. Now we have the war on terror. Evidently we like to think of these struggles as wars but that doesn’t help us to solve these problems and today, characterizing our struggle with terrorism as a war is creating more problems than it is solving.