The Bush administration "made" Al Qaeda
By using the language and framing the response to 9-11 as "the global war on terror" the Bush administration lifted Al Qaeda up from a small group of radicals and gave them legitimacy.
Core Al Qaeda is in actuality fairly small, but, in its necessity for a worldwide enemy, the Bush administration has annointed Al Qaeda as the figurehead of the "global jihad," and given them a role far beyond anything they could have accomplished on their own.
They inflated Al Qaeda as an enemy for their political purposes, but then lost control of that image.
Now, as the US is failing in Iraq to quell the sectarian civil war, the annointed enemy, Al Qaeda, appears to be winning.
If we had treated them as criminals, they never would have ascended to this level of influence.
Of course, then the Bush administration couldn't have invaded Iraq.
Just a stray thought.
Core Al Qaeda is in actuality fairly small, but, in its necessity for a worldwide enemy, the Bush administration has annointed Al Qaeda as the figurehead of the "global jihad," and given them a role far beyond anything they could have accomplished on their own.
They inflated Al Qaeda as an enemy for their political purposes, but then lost control of that image.
Now, as the US is failing in Iraq to quell the sectarian civil war, the annointed enemy, Al Qaeda, appears to be winning.
If we had treated them as criminals, they never would have ascended to this level of influence.
Of course, then the Bush administration couldn't have invaded Iraq.
Just a stray thought.
posted by mikevotes at
2:31 PM
12 Comments:
That's all true.
It's important to keep an eye on first principles in the midst of our current flurry of scandals, misdirection and outright lies.
By
Anonymous, at 3:03 PM
This policy, this response will largely be the framework on which Bush's "worst president" legacy will be built. The echoes of these mistakes will be felt for decades, at least.
(Probably, this image of the preseident will be reinforced by New Orleans.)
As bad as the scandals and all the other stuff, it is these decisions that will be felt for decades.
By
mikevotes, at 3:06 PM
There's also an issue of a larger "realignment" in the middle east.
We've now framed this as violent. The "pro-democracy" effort was an attempt to shunt the violence somewhat aside, but as "pro democracy" was situationally and inconsistantly applied, we have undermined that possible avenue.
We have made Al Qaeda, rather than democratic reformers, the main available mechanism of change in the Sunni gulf countries.
We will pay for that.
By
mikevotes, at 3:09 PM
We're blood-hungry Americans. If the world gives us a green light to smash a country to pieces, most Americans will just sit back and watch the fireworks.
The only problem with treating al-Qaeda as criminals is how you bring them in. If the tens of thousands of well-trained soldiers that went into Afghanistan to "smoke them out of their caves" couldn't find the core leadership (forget about the redeployment of resources away from Afghanistan to Iraq for a moment), how could a much smaller law enforcement-like group do any better if the country that harbored them wouldn't take them into custody?
By
Anonymous, at 3:15 PM
I guess I didn't fully explain my thinking.
I was speaking of the language and ideology with which you go after them.
I think you still undertake the Afghanistan operation, and do what you can to catch them there. (Not including pulling out resources for Iraq.)
But, even if they escape across to Pakistan, you undertake the mechanisms of international law to bring them out.
Officially ask Pakistan to aid you in pulling out these criminals, and through a quiet back door, coordinate the politics with them of doing so militarily.
In the aftermath of 9/11, the politics, even in Pakistan, were such that would have been possible.
I'm really talking more about the language and framing of the effort against Al Qaeda rather than the mechanisms.
I still think you would have to do all of this militarily, probably with an even bigger military footprint in Afghanistan than we've ever had, but you cloak the entire effort within the "justice" of responding to 9/11.
The one bit that would cause problems is rounding up those not directly related with the 9/11 attacks, but certainly most of them could be pulled up on conspiracy charges tying them into the group.
Basically, you would declare the entire group and all of its members international outlaws.
Again, in the wake of 9/11, the world would have helped.
It wasn't until Iraq that we lost any legitimization for anything we were doing.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 4:20 PM
I am in complete agreement with you. Bush wasted a golden opportunity to really root out al-Qaeda. He had a blank check and the world behind him in the wake of 9/11.
And look what he did with it.
The Taliban and al-Qaeda have reaffirmed their hold in Afghanistan and Iraq is Iraq. Even if we were to pull our resources out of Iraq and send them back to Afghanistan, I don't know if the world would still support us in our efforts.
By
Anonymous, at 4:57 PM
Absolutely. Bush and bin Laden have a symbiotic relationship. The 10/29/04 bin Laden video claiming responsibility for 9/11 says it all.
I'm sure you've seen this, but in Ron Suskind's awesome "One Percent Doctrine," he quotes CIA deputy Jami Miscik on the video: "Bin Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President. Certainly, he would want Bush to keep doing what he’s doing for a few more years."
When there's no "evil empire" to fight, create one.
By
Nonplussed2, at 5:18 PM
Jeff, yeah. The Afghan/Pakistan border region has reestablished and it represents our greatest danger right now.
....
Nonplussed, Terrorism is a tipping point strategy designed to change the status quo in a situation. Al Qaeda's strategic goal through the 9/11 attacks was to lift his organization up transforming it from a regional faction to a world organization.
Another explicitly stated goal was to lure the US into a quagmire conflict in Afghanistan to bleed them (and he believed break them,) the way Al Qaeda believes it broke the Soviet empire.
And Bush complied in spades.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 6:02 PM
Insightful point(s) Mike.
Another slant is that by painting the "evil doers" in dramatic and mythic proportions, Bush then elevates himself, by comparison, to dramatic and mythic proportions as the slayer of these demons. All very Wagnerian.. our own mad little Ludwig.
By
-epm, at 6:28 PM
Good addition.
It echoes his efforts to compare himself to Lincoln or Roosevelt.
(how freaking egotistical is that?)
By
mikevotes, at 6:37 PM
I'll bet there's no small number of mental health professionals that would like to get this guy on the couch!
God, it's got to be one freaky place inside that head... :)
By
-epm, at 9:15 PM
I am not an expert,but it seems frighteningly textbook to me.
Absent father, distant mother, a severe outward overcompensation towards self worth.
By
mikevotes, at 9:38 PM
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