| |
| |
|
|
| |
| |
| How
Osama Won the War on Terror |
By
Achal Mehra |
| Bush is implicitly
conceding victory to Al Qaeda by constantly
invoking the fear of terrorists in his presidential
campaign. |
|
|
|
| In
the weeks or months ahead, Osama bin Laden
will likely be smoked out of a cave in the
mountains along the Pakistan-Afghanistan
border. Regardless of where and how he is
found — dead or alive — he may
already have won the war he launched on
9/11. President Bush never tires on the
campaign trial of reminding Americans
that 9/11 “changed” the country.
Indeed, he ridicules his opponent John
Kerry for failing to recognize that shift,
for living, as he taunts, in a 9/10 world.
By acknowledging the transformation that
9/11 wrought on the American psyche, Bush
is implicitly conceding victory to bin
Laden.
No country, much less a terrorist group
on the run and under siege, is any match
for the overwhelming military power of
the United States. By fixating exclusively
on military superiority, President Bush
fundamentally misunderstands Al Qaeda’s
military and political strategy.
|
|
Al Qaeda cannot, nor is it seeking to,
defeat the United States militarily. It
is barely even putting up a fight; its
surviving leadership is mostly hiding
out in caves. Even the sporadic deadly
attacks its supporters muster in Afghanistan
and Iraq (the foci of the U.S. military
efforts), in real military terms, are
inconsequential.
But they are enough to service Al Qaeda’s
tactical military objective, which is
to keep Americans under a perception of
perpetual siege and force them to succumb
to their fears. The Bush administration’s
policies ironically aid those Al Qaeda
goals.
Vice President Dick Cheney warns ominously
of chemical and biological attacks, even
eerie mushroom clouds, in our cities.
Those fears, combined with the ill-conceived
color coded terrorist warning system and
sporadic displays of police power in public
squares in major cities, keep Americans
on edge and serve to exaggerate and elevate
Al Qaeda’s mystique. |
|
|
|
|
| |
One
of the most elevating images from
World War II is that of Winston
Churchill perched on the roof
of the Air Ministry in the midst
of the deadly Blitz of London
by German warplanes "to watch
the fireworks," as he famously
quipped. By contrast, the most
striking presidential images on
9/11 are of Vice President Dick
Cheney being grabbed by Secret
Service agents and whisked to
an underground bunker under the
White House and of President Bush
being secreted away at air force
bases in Louisiana and Nebraska.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
They
are the best recruitment commercials bin
Laden could conceive — and they
are broadcast for him free across the
far reaches of the world. Even some of
Bush’s campaign commercials, such
as the most recent spooky one featuring
wolves, designed to reinforce his political
message of the terrorism threat, with
only a few voiceover changes, could just
as easily pump up bin Laden’s victory
rallies.
The Bush administration ceded tactical
advantage to Al Qaeda not just in the
military sphere. Its domestic and international
agenda advance Al Qaeda’s strategic
and political objectives as well.
Al Qaeda and the terrorist groups it
has spawned, hate the idea of America,
which celebrates the human spirit, democratic
ideals and individual liberty. These ideals
have inspired generations of human rights
movements worldwide, propelled the velvet
revolutions in Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union, and are the beacons of hope
for fledgling democracy movements from
Africa to Asia.
The Taliban and Al Qaeda loathe these
very American ideals. All the more so,
because they contrast them with the coddling
of brutal dictators by the United States
in major parts of the world, most especially
the Middle East.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
The Bush administration’s war on
terror provides political ammunition to
Al Qaeda, which can now point to America’s
retreat on its democratic principles as
well. Long-cherished civil and political
liberties and traditions were weakened under
the PATRIOT Act. Aliens have been secretly
detained, sometimes indefinitely without
charges and access to lawyers, or even deported
without a hearing.
Citizens and noncitizens alike have been
monitored and tapped without judicial oversight,
and trials of terrorism suspects are underway
before legally questionable military tribunals.
Then there are the horrendous abuses of
prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay
and calculated attempts to evade international
law and the Geneva Convention on a disturbing
scale. |
|
The fact that Al Qaeda members are themselves
among the victims of these abuses hardly
matters. Life, even one’s own, has
little value in Al Qaeda’s maniacal
schemes; its suicide missionaries are ample
evidence of that. By invoking fear and terrorists
in his campaign and giving short shrift
to the country’s democratic ideals
in the war on terror, President Bush has
naively played into Al Qaeda’s hands:
the “Great Satan” is exposed
as quivering, duplicitous and befuddled.
One of the most elevating images from World
War II is that of Winston Churchill perched
on the roof of the Air Ministry in the midst
of the deadly Blitz of London by German
warplanes “to watch the fireworks,”
as he famously quipped. By contrast, the
most striking presidential images on 9/11
are of Vice President Dick Cheney being
grabbed by Secret Service agents and whisked
to an underground bunker under the White
House and of President Bush being secreted
away at air force bases in Louisiana and
Nebraska.
Churchill’s courage in defying the
Nazi planes was a testament to his bravery
and epitomized his leadership in a time
of war. Bush’s and Cheney’s
scramble for cover in the immediate aftermath
of 9/11, and the administration’s
policies since, have fed the public hysteria
and fear so rampant in the country.
President Bush could have defied the terrorists
by standing resolute in preserving the most
open society in human history that we have
ever fashioned. Beyond threatening to come
after the terrorists who brought down the
Twin Towers, he should have blared into
the bull horn on Ground Zero to Al Qaeda
and the world: We are not afraid.
He fell prey instead to the fear and paranoia
that engulfed him and his administration
at the start of this crisis and which continue
to dog and hobble both his policy and presidential
campaign to this day. In the process, President
Bush ceded victory to Osama bin Laden, whose
sole inspiration at this moment in his remote
hideout must come from the powerful mystique
that Bush has constructed around him and
images of terror and terrified U.S. citizens
that resonate in the president’s campaign
commercials.
If America is to ever claim victory in
the war on terror, it must, in direct contrast
to President Bush’s game plan, seek
to revert to the very 9/10 world that he
mocks John Kerry of living in.
|
|
|
| |
| Naked
in the Bush Bush's
Black Eye
Defying
the Imagination
The
False Choice
Liberal
Liars
Heading
for the Bush
The
Morality of War
Naked
in the Bush
Bush's
Black Eye
Defying
the Imagination
The
False Choice
Liberal
Liars
Heading
for the Bush
The
Morality of War
|
|
|
..-
End Of Article..... |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
