January 14, 2005
Opinion:
Is this the result we wanted?
By Jack GrantThe National Intelligence Council, a think-tank of CIA directors, shares my analysis of the effects of the Iraq War on the fight against Islamofascism. From MSNBC.com:
Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."So, we denied the Islamofascists the haven of Afghanistan for their training camps, but we gifted them with not only a new training ground with "live fire exercises" and an incredible recruiting tool (expel the infidel from Arab land!), but we also provided a huge source of weapons.
President Bush has frequently described the Iraq war as an integral part of U.S. efforts to combat terrorism. But the council's report suggests the conflict has also helped terrorists by creating a haven for them in the chaos of war."At the moment," NIC Chairman Robert L. Hutchings said, Iraq "is a magnet for international terrorist activity."
Before the U.S. invasion, the CIA said Saddam Hussein had only circumstantial ties with several al Qaeda members. Osama bin Laden rejected the idea of forming an alliance with Hussein and viewed him as an enemy of the jihadist movement because the Iraqi leader rejected radical Islamic ideals and ran a secular government.
Bush described the war in Iraq as a means to promote democracy in the Middle East. "A free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East," he said one month before the invasion. "Instead of threatening its neighbors and harboring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity in a region that needs both."
Unguarded borders
But as instability in Iraq grew after the toppling of Hussein, and resentment toward the United States intensified in the Muslim world, hundreds of foreign terrorists flooded into Iraq across its unguarded borders. They found tons of unprotected weapons caches that, military officials say, they are now using against U.S. troops. Foreign terrorists are believed to make up a large portion of today's suicide bombers, and U.S. intelligence officials say these foreigners are forming tactical, ever-changing alliances with former Baathist fighters and other insurgents.
"The al-Qa'ida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq," the report says.
So, our tactic has been to go our own way, losing credibility regarding regarding our honesty, our judgment, and our morality. Is this the "progress in the War on Terror" that we are told we have made?
Lest we forget, Islamofascism is NOT an existential threat to the United States. However, in the long run, there are other threats that can ultimately be far more damaging than even the most horrific terrorist attack.
Yesterday, Hutchings, former assistant dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, said the NIC report tried to avoid analyzing the effect of U.S. policy on global trends to avoid being drawn into partisan politics.Among the report's major findings is that the likelihood of "great power conflict escalating into total war . . . is lower than at any time in the past century." However, "at no time since the formation of the Western alliance system in 1949 have the shape and nature of international alignments been in such a state of flux as they have in the past decade."
The report also says the emergence of China and India as new global economic powerhouses "will be the most challenging of all" Washington's regional relationships. It also says that in the competition with Asia over technological advances, the United States "may lose its edge" in some sectors.
The biggest long term threat to the United States is NOT Islamofascism, unless we allow our "War on Terror" to cause us to resemble the ostensible "democracies" in the Middle East, with ruling families (Jeb Bush, anyone??), labeling of citizens as "enemy combatants" solely on the word of the administration accompanied by indeterminate internment with no judicial review, and loyalty rewarded instead of competence. Our biggest short term threat is ourselves, and our biggest long term threat is the rise of the Asian nations with huge reservoirs of intelligent, talented people and natural resources.
Meanwhile, in a stunning imitation of Nero fiddling while Rome burns, there is a great party planned while across town good men and women are having to re-learn to walk with missing limbs. We're destroying our best and brightest in a war that may have been justified, but not for the reasons used to "sell" it, and in an occupation that would have been difficult to deliberately mismanage worse than the actual result.
Pray for your children, for the nation and world they will inherit will not be the one left for you by your parents.
Jack - I won't say you're wrong, but I will say that in April, 1862, February 1942, and for pretty much the entire Revolution, things did'nt look so good, and most of your questions could be raised.
And, generally, were.
And one major difference is - they are being raised, something not true elsewhere.
There was no just knocking over Iraq and walking away, especially since we weren't going to/allowed to, do to the Iraqi governmental structure what we did to the Germans and Japanese.
Of course the government isn't going to admit to whole scads of failures, and are going to focus on what they perceive as successes.
Because the press is doing it anyway (the failures) and doesn't do a great job reporting the successes - if not from bias, then because they don't make interesting news in an industry that does have to make money.
And the military has never been, nor, I suspect will they ever be, all that good at communicating. The fact we've let the embeds in was for us a stroke of genuis that has been a net plus.
The problem with part of your arguments is that they are easily twistable to mean we=them, which I don't think is what you truly mean. More like we COULD = them... except THEY didn't allow people like you to live.
And yes, what Graner and Co did was venal and stupid and criminal, but just doesn't rise to the level of feeding people into industrial shredders feet-first, eh?
So... without re-reading this and navel-gazing, your points (perhaps less the Jeb Bush one) have merit in varying levels - but the mere fact that you make them without any real fear or risk except for snarky comments from the Ulcer Man or Beth is indicative that we are nowhere near what our enemies were.
And, we're going to give them a chance to do right by themselves, or sink. All we can do. Just like when we let Andy out that door now that he's 18.
And was it perfect? No. Were mistakes made? Yes.
And you've read about 'em, and commented on 'em - and therein lies a difference so huge, yet so common, we overlook it.
Jeb? *If* he runs (I doubt it) and get's elected - well, he got elected, didn't he? Not appointed. Run that particular one by me when there are no Kennedy's and Gores running around in politics, and keep an eye on Chelsea... or George appoints Jeb to a postion that could put him unelected into the White House, like Gerald Ford's amazing little journey.
Cheers,
John
Oh, yeah, I did that here - would you like me to dump it over into Acidman's 'cuz I doubt anyone over there is coming back to this post?
Happy to oblige!
Posted by: John of Argghhh! at January 16, 2005 10:36 PMOh - I didn't answer your question... we don't know if this is the result we wanted, because we don't know, nor will we for years, what result we truly got.
Did we want these included components that you are talking about? Of course not. But it also doesn't mean they were completely avoidable, either.
WWI, II, Korea, hell the Civil War were all far more messy than popular "Reader's Digest Condensed Versions" of history leave the impression.
Nor were they ever as clear to the people during the event as they are to us later.
Why? Because the people writing history are collating the data of hundreds, thousands of researchers, and, in the fullness of time, tracing the timelines, correlations, and interrelationships... laying them out cleanly for us.
As a Targeteer, I've been immersed in the data streams... nothing is ever as clear as it seems then as it does after the post-strike brief.
It takes a lot longer when you are dealing with a war.
Posted by: John of Argghhh! at January 16, 2005 10:41 PMJohn,
I do appreciate all you said here, and saying it is important, not the least because it forces me to think in different ways!!!
I am not happy about the possibility of Hillary running in 2008, and I agree that if Jeb Bush is elected eventually, well, he *was* elected. I just don't like how our system tends to promote those who already have advantages (i.e. relations) rather than the truly competent (those masses of whom we know nothing because they aren't married or related to the right people). We like to think we have a meritocracy, but the company I recently worked for (Motorola) was almost driven completely into the ground by the grandson of the founder, a man who supposedly got his job "on merit" but whose performance showed otherwise. If that can happen in private industry, where money and profitability is ostensibly the sole object, what of our democracy?
That is the heart of why I ask the questions I do, and why I am heartened by the fact I *can indeed* ask those questions.
Which means I cannot stop asking, regardless of the rocks I get thrown at me.
No need to throw your cross before the swine (I suspect you already get it, but look up the reference yourself if you want, I'm too tired and it's almost midnight here), but I do appreciate the offer of cross-posting.
Posted by: Jack at January 16, 2005 10:49 PM
