The question is posed in this profoundly depressing story in the Guardian yesterday:
Jihad has worked - the world is now split in two
Osama bin Laden, two years and three months after the New York and Washington attacks that were part of his jihad against America, appears to be winning. He has lost his base in Afghanistan, as well as many colleagues and fighters, and his communications and finances have been disrupted. He may be buried under rubble in Afghanistan or, as Washington and London assume, be hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas. But from Kandahar to Baghdad, from Istanbul to Riyadh, blood is being shed in the name of Bin Laden's jihad.
It's a provocative read -- and, as the author notes, the kind of argument that can really get you in trouble with the conservative thought police:
There is a tendency in the west to play down - or ignore - the extent of Bin Laden's success. The US and UK governments regard mentioning it as disloyal or heretical.
And it's true. I can't speak for Britain, but as a society, America seems to be past the point where it can cope with policy failures -- even in the middle of a global struggle against an elusive and ruthless enemy. Everything, and I mean everything, has been reduced to the level of a 30-second political ad or the ersatz sound and fury of a Capital Gang shouting match.
Failure is simply a PR "negative" to be spun into a positive, or drowned out with the appropriate buzz words -- "progress" and "strength" and "leadership." It's an exercise in the management of public perceptions, not an effort to find solutions or mobilize national resources. Partisan political advantage is the main objective, not success in the war against Al Qaeda.
I can't place all the blame on Rove and company -- these are tendencies that have metastasized across party lines in the modern political era. But the Mayberry Machiavellis have certainly taken them to new heights, as Josh Marshall, Laura Rozen, and Colin Soloway document in the December issue of the Washington Monthly.
The trio examined the personnel practices of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, which appears to resemble a cross between a Washington lobbying firm and an alumni gathering of the Young Republicans:
CPA officials say that the older GOP functionaries do a reasonable job keeping their partisanship publicly under wraps. But the younger Republicans in Iraq spend much of their time plotting against the Democrats. "Everything is seen in the context of the election, and how they will screw the Democrats," said one CPA official. "It was really pretty shocking to hear them talk.""They are all on the campaign trail," said another official. "They see this as a stepping stone to a better job in the next Bush administration."
There is, of course, absolutely no evidence that the administration plans to change any of this, except to the extent of skedaddling out of Iraq at the first semi-decent opportunity -- "leadership," "strength," "progress," etc. Just think of next year's Bush Cheney campaign as a jobs program for the unemployed drones of Operation Iraqi Liberation.
I don't want to glorify the World War II generation too much -- Tom Brokaw has already nailed down that gig -- but it is illustrative to compare the Bush administration's Enronish response to failure in Iraq to the way the American high command dealt with our first major defeat in North Africa, the Battle of Kasserine Pass. Neil Sheehan, the Vietnam-era journalist and author, described it in his book A Bright Shining Lie:
"Eisenhower had told Patton to rehabilitate the demoralized troops and prepare to counterattack the Germans. He had scribbled a note in pencil giving Patton authority to assume command of the four American divisions in Tunisia the moment he landed there, and Patton had taken off again directly for the front.Eisenhower had followed up his note with a memorandum of instructions: Patton was not to keep "for one instant" any officer who was not up to the mark. "We cannot afford to throw away soldiers and equipment ... and effectiveness" out of unwillingness to injure "the feelings of old friends," Eisenhower had written. Ruthlessness of this kind toward acquaintances often required difficult moral courage, Eisenhower continued, but he expected Patton "to be perfectly cold-blooded about it."
As Sheehan notes, there's a reason why Eisenhower was so intolerant of failure and so ruthless about weeding it out. It was the same reason that prompted the Army and Navy to cashier the admiral and the general in command at Pearl Harbor -- even though their responsibility for the disaster was less than clear cut. Eisenhower knew, or at least believed, that America could lose the war:
Eisenhower and Patton and their United States Army of 1943 had been small men in a world of big men. Their personal survival, the survival of their Army, and the survival of their nation had been at stake. And they had been afraid that they might lose."
Sheehan was trying to make a point about the Vietnam War, which was that by the time America stumbled into the rice paddies of Southeast Asia, the nation's military and political leaders had lost their fear of failure, and so had become both complacent and increasingly tolerant of personal and bureaucratic incompetence. Sheehan called it the "disease of victory":
World War II had been such a triumph of American resources, technology and industrial and military genius, and the prosperity that the war and the postwar dominance abroad had brought had been so satisfying after the long hunger of the Depression, that American society had become the victim of its own achievement. The elite of America had become stupified by too much money, too many material resources, too much power, and too much success.
For the American military, Vietnam cured the "victory disease" -- at least for a time. And if the political class didn't grow wiser from the experience, at least they became more cautious -- but also only for a time. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the lighting quick victory in Gulf War I, and the economic success (however unbalanced) of the past two decades appear to have erased whatever lessons Vietnam should have taught the elites about the risks of overconfidence and complacency.
But there's more to it than that. Something at the core of the American spirit has been corrupted -- by wealth and power and the steady commercialization of just about everything. And we're a nation divided, more so than at any time since the Civil War, split into mutually hostile camps, secular and religious, liberal and conservative, casually cosmopolitan and reflexively, if not rabidly, nationalist.
So the war on terrorism has become just another skirmish in the war between the cultures. And the causes and consequences of failures -- like 9/11 -- get swept under the rug by the party in power, while the party out of power is either silenced by its own ineffectuality, or simply tries to score points of its own in the endless PR game.
It's asking a hell of a lot to expect a country like that to wage such a strange, confusing, subtle and protracted struggle as the battle against Islamic terrorism. "In war," Napoleon supposedly said, "the moral to the material is as three to one." By moral, he meant not so much the correctness or justness of the respective causes, but rather the elan and effectiveness of the respective combatants. Surely, in a war such as this, that ratio is more like 10 to 1 or even higher.
Judging from events -- by the stupidity and the arrogance of the neocons, the Pentagon's over-reliance on brute force, the Bush administration's easy tolerance of incompetence, corruption, and careerism, and the raw political opportunism displayed by the Republican machine -- I'd say America is coming up way short on the moral end of that equation.
America may still win the war, despite its own inner rot. Al Qaeda has yet to achieve its primary political objectives, which appear to be the overthrow of the House of Saud, and/or an Islamic revolution in Pakistan. The world may indeed be split in two -- Islamic and non-Islamic -- as the Guardian article suggests. But the Anglo-American coalition still appears to be firmly in control of both halves, at least at the top. And in the much larger contest of Jihad vs. McWorld, cultural globalization continues to grind out its slow but thorough victory. Just as America could "win" militarily but lose politically, Al Qaeda conceivably could "win" politically but lose culturally, as Western materialism eventually smothers traditional Islamic values.
But the prospect of long-term victory isn't likely to provide much short-term comfort if Pakistan falls and Al Qaeda gets the bomb, or Saudi Arabia falls and global oil prices go ballistic. Failure, the hawks like to say, is not an option. But failure is always an option. And unless the powers that be and their witless supporters get that through their thick skulls, failure is what we are most likely to get.
I'd say the staffing in Iraq is a large contributing factor to the mess, judging from that article. Talk about the old "not what you know, who you know" game! Meritocracy, my left foot.
Osama Bin Laden obviously wants a War Between The Cultures, Islam versus the rest, because it suits his purposes. The Bush Mob, instead of treating that threat by developing good intelligence, old fashioned detective work, creating a coalition of countries who see that war as a bad thing to help isolate bin Laden; instead of doing all that, they've played right into bin Laden's hands by *giving him his war*. Like you said, failure hasn't entered their heads, and it's going to cost us all.
Outstanding. The Guardian piece is damned good too. From the very beginning, the enemy has been underestimated and bin Laden has been kicking serious butt. The strategy has to be rethought, but that can't really be done until the troops can get out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
We've played into Osama's hands. Does anyone believe he has been surprised or disappointed in the reaction to 9/11? I think he's been delighted. Everything is going pretty much perfectly for him.
Can anyone imagine peace in our time?
good to see you are back to your excellent work after that brief hiatus
billmon, you're "religious" vs "secular" dichotomy is false, here.
I mean, you won't find a whole bunch of Presbyterian ministers planning to vote for GWB. But they are certainly a religious bunch. I know this, because my uncle is one such. And my aunt is the closest thing you can come to an evangelical, socialist Presbyterian. When you say religious vs secular you are allowing the worst of the Republicans to define the debate.
He probably meant religious vs secular as in "america is a christian nation and laws should be from the book" vs "america is built upon freedom of religion and laws should be from philosophy", in other words, is religion a government issue or a personal issue.
And the causes and consequences of failures -- like 9/11 -- get swept under the rug by the party in power, while the party out of power is either silenced by its own ineffectuality, or simply tries to score points of its own in the endless PR game.
This is the problem to the solution - the two-party system. As we have seen across much of the last 23 years, and maybe longer, there are a lot of sweetheart deals going on between the two parties that ensures self-interest over the welfare of the nation. Osama and his jihad are the result of such complacency, which still doesn't realize that things have gotten worse for everyone, not just the lowest 99%. Congress was meant to be a deliberative body, not a de-liberate one.
Under one party rule (while the other party plots revenge and take over), there is no way that self-interest will be set aside in favor of the the good of the nation, and since 1945, because of the struggles of people like Eisenhower, Patton, MacArthur, etc., for the good of the world as a whole.
A world that can decypher the complexities of nuclear physics sufficiently to threaten all life on Earth can certainly understand the dangers of either-or politics.
Now who was misunderestimated?
I may as well bang my head against the wall as read the news. Someone tell me when Bush is out of office or a U.S. or Israeli city gets nuked.
the two-party system
The republicratic duopoly fortifies its hold on power by continually recreating the appearance of an opposition or antagonism where opponents are in collusion.
the enemy has been underestimated
Rumsfeld's leaked memo, regarding the "metrics" of the war on terror, makes an even more radical point, which may, in fact, only be a reflection of the Bush administration's policy failures: the enemy cannot be estimated.
Goog point chsa
the eneny cannot be estimated
sounds to me like an excuse for an unfocused
war fought for political reasons, which is what
we have now. I haven't read the Rumsfeld memo
so I may be way off, but isn't one of the first rules
of war to be able to estimate the enemy?
And anyway, if the war mongers sat down and thought
about it, the enemy could be estimated - it's poverty
and social inequity. You don't fight those with
200 ton bombs dropped on families. What we need
is a bomb that kills ideas ...
Another brilliant post!
There is no doubt that bin Laden is winning this war. He had the great good fortune to have George Bush as an antagonist. Ask yourself, "what was the purpose of 9/11?" Was it to destroy America? Well get a grip. The attacks of 9/11 were predicated on the idea that if we were hit at home hard enough, we would strike back in a stupid blundering way that would then generate more hostility towards us and inspire opposition. But of course that would presupose that our leadership was dumb enough to fall into that trap.
Shouldn't Napoleon's "moral" be "morale"
as in troop morale in Iraq hits rock bottom...
It's asking a hell of a lot to expect a country like that to wage such a strange, confusing, subtle and protracted struggle as the battle against Islamic terrorism...
Perfect example of how they have altered our perceptions. Bush keeps saying "worldwide" terrorism, meaning groups like the Sendero Luminoso, Basque terrorists, the IRA, the Red Army Faction, Japan's Aum Shinrikyo, home-grown nuts like McVeigh or the anthrax killer, as well. But from the spin being put out, the public at large automatically concludes the whole thing is about "Islamic" terrorists the minute the word "terrorist" is mentioned. We've been painted a picture again, not in spoken words but by allusion. The same excuse for the "immenent attack" will eventually come up when the sh*t hits the proverbial fan: "We never said it was only against Islamic terrorists." But that's exactly how they want the public to perceive it, and they are succeeding.
Really great post, Billmon. I'm sending it out to friends with links to this site.
Thnx Billmon, great read.
I wonder if the 'axis of evil' sees bush as a terrorist.
there is no way that self-interest will be set aside in favor of the the good of the nation
Don't know if you've read John Ralston Saul's The Unconscious Civilization, but it's a first-rate analysis of exactly this phenomenon.
Note the World can't decipher the mysteries of nuclear physics or the technology so many enjoy.
A few individuals can. Something less than 0.1% of the people. Don't expect the larger group of people to see anything other than a binary conflict, a "you're either with me or against me" view of the world.
Such people are easily manipulated. When the manipulator is a Thomas Paine or a Martin Luther King, you can have a great revolution towards the good. When the manipulator is a Karl Rove or an Osama Bin Lauden, expect a move towards the Dark Ages.
A lot of folks can't deal with basic math much less nuclear physics: witness how many clerks are at a total loss if the cash register doesn't tell them what the exact change is.
At the local casino, dealers can handle the blackjack payout on a $5 bet, but let the $7.50 ride and get lucky again, as often as not they have to call the pit boss to figure the payout.
I don't see BUSH "skedaddling out of Iraq" and I really don't think he is planning on doing that as Ms. Hillary Clinton said on the news last weekend that staying the course longer that what she said Bush was planning was the couse she wanted to take.
Leaving Iraq does NOT serve the Project for the New American Century and it's wish list very well, and certianly this new approach that Wolfowitz has to bar other countries from contract deals in Iraq doesn't show us leaving anytime soon.
Bush is talking about leaving but at the same time it's doesn't look as if Bush is actually leaving and the administration has been asking Israelis how to fight insurgence and Bush is put up walls in Iraq as well looking to staff and thus activating the draft boards.
Hillary and McCain are saying that Bush needs more troops in Iraq-the only place we can get more troops is though the draft. Sen. Charles Rangel is going to see his dream of reinstatment of the DRAFT come true with the re-election of George W. Bush.
Oh yeah, and this just in too:
MOVE RILES RANGEL
New York Post, NY - 6 hours ago
... Tomorrow, Rangel plans to formally endorse Clark at a Harlem rally to which he's
invited black elected leaders ... At a separate event in New York yesterday,
We have war going on in a battle for control of the Democratic Party.
Bush had the opportunity to lead, but he wanted things like tax cuts and winning congress most of all.
Al Qaeda conceivably could "win" politically but lose culturally, as Western materialism eventually smothers traditional Islamic values.
Not if you take a slightly longer term view; what happens in 100 years when the Goliath of Western materialism starts to run out of the energy sources that drive it? What do you think steps in to fill that void?
Sadly, most people don't seem to understand that leaving these clowns in office (hell, even having put them there in the first place) will drastically change the world that their children, and their children's children, live in. This fight is long-term: generations, not weeks. Keeping the blinders on may make our lives seem safer and happier, but, oh, is somebody in for a rude awakening....
Frighteningly good post, Billmon. You have become a treasure for those who think and feel for the welfare of the planet. Take care of yourself, watch for burnout and keep your balance. Your voice in this wilderness of ours is that precious.
Re Osama, GWB, and the swing of history, It is simply amazing to me that the American population does not realize that we can lose the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Are probably already losing them. As you say, defeat is always an option. But, our political and military elites seem to have peered into the looking glass and been mesmerized by the glory of their own images. There is no policy here, no realistic objectives, no effective tactics. It's all appearance and expediency. My God, what a formula for failure the Bushites have put together. Do they actually think they can control the forces of tribalism and nationalism which are being unleasheed in Iraq? Chalabi doesn't stand a chance against al-Sistani and the CPA will be blowing in the wind once the Iraqi get (or win) the right of self determination.
And the Americans are pouring mountains of money into this fucking sinkhole Are we all collectively crazy? No wonder Osama feels he is winning! Who can really doubt it?
Agreed, Han.
But many of those in power live in a different- fantasy- world than we do.
Many believe in End Time fundamentalism, and justify their greed as the vehicle to best perpetuate their own beliefs.
Thank God you’re back. I was clicking on Whiskey Bar first even when all that was listed was the archives.
Brilliant Post. Today’s radio news said that Bush’s ratings jumped to 55% and that over 60% support the Iraq War. What is the disconnect between my view that the Iraq War is an all too familiar replay of Viet Nam that I experienced and the view 60% of the US population. My list:
1) Media and Bush Administration Propaganda
2) Rally around the American Flag
3) Avenging 9-11.
4) Religious intolerance “A crusade against Muslims”
5) No experience with the random chaos and devastation of war
There are enough reports from Iraq to document the continuing chaos and inability to put enough troops in country to control the population. An example:
At the one remaining US military compound in Samarra, US soldiers on Sunday refused to leave their sand-bagged bunkers to meet a western visitor at the gate. "It's dangerous here! Go away!" yelled one.
The War in Iraq is already lost. The only question is how soon does the USA withdraw. By turning the Iraq War into a Crusade and aligning itself with the Likud Government, the USA has pitted the Christian USA against 1.2 billion Muslim. Besides hubris and incompetence, the only other explanation for this war between the haves and have nots has to be the ideological blinders of a President who is madly planning for the coming Rapture.
As so well written above, there is no guarantee that the USA will win this war. Can you guarantee that God isn’t really Allah. Or maybe God will remain neutral. Or maybe there isn’t a God after at all and war is total random rape and pillage that you as an individual have absolutely no control over except to try to survive.
Billmon,
This is a great post, though a depressing one. Is this the tipping point when the politics of the US goes through a great shake-up, such as just before the Civil War, or 1933?
The Republicans have thrown out many of their historic values, such as financial prudence, and a reluctance to impose beliefs on others. The Democrats have bought into the corporate belief system, and abdicated justice to the trial lawyers. A new party is needed.
We need a foreign policy which has as its first goal the long term security of the US. We need domestic policy which has as its first goal the long term well-being of all the citizens of the US. Is that too much to ask?
We need a new party. Let's call it the American Party. We could endorse those existing Senators and Representatives who are fighting the same fight, as well as those who have started their own parties. The party should be based on ideology, rather than the appeal of one man (Reform Party...)
First things first -- glad you're back.
I find it saddening that 'religious vs. secular' has become a way to divide America, particularly because I consider myself a religious person (after all, I'm a divinity student), but there's not a chance this side of hell you could find me associating with the sanctimonious thugs who have hijacked Christianity in order to claim that God looks just like they do. They've taken 'religious' and defined it as 'fundamentalist Christian in a Christian nation,' which is a process painful to watch, and foretells an outcome this country cannot bear.
p mac's got a point -- letting this become a division lets the Religious Right define the terms of engagement, and leaves a lot of religious people on the left out in the cold. It's akin to the way some liberals won't display the American flag for fear they'll be lumped in with the blindly patriotic, 'my country, right or wrong' zealots. Even I will look suspiciously at someone who's wearing too much Jesus junk, wondering if this person would consider me -- a gay liberal Christian -- their enemy.
The problem is not that there is no religious left, or that it doesn't speak up, but that the fire-and-brimstone message of hate and damnation for everyone except the 'right' people is so much louder and more persuasive -- at least, to the people who are already on the 'right' side. Real Christianity involves loving and treating like human beings even the people you don't agree with or don't even like -- no wonder it doesn't have a large following from the comfortable middle-class Happy Families who want to go to church every Sunday morning, hear that God loves them best of all, and go back to their day jobs secure in the knowledge that this gives them authority to do anything they want to the last and the least.
...Sorry for the sermon. Not a criticism, just an observation. Great post, too; keep up the good work.
Brilliant work, Billmon, and a great antidote to Tom Friedman.
I think we can all agree that Osama bin Laden is a madman. To accept his definition of a clash of civilizations and fight on his terms is also mad. Hunter Thompson said after 9/11, "We're not at war, we're having a nervous breakdown." He's pegged it. And so have you.
p mac's got a point -- letting this become a division lets the Religious Right define the terms of engagement, and leaves a lot of religious people on the left out in the cold.
I did wrestle with that one a bit. I thought about calling it humanist vs. fundamentalist, but that wasn't quite right either, since many people who would call themselves religious conservatives wouldn't call themselves fundamentalists, and many religious and non-religious liberals wouldn't call themselves humanists.
I think you probably understand what I'm trying to say. Most of the religious liberals I've known are comfortable with the idea of the United States as a secular nation, in which the social contract is utilitarian, not divinely ordained. Most religious conservatives would probably reject that idea.
Hunter Thompson said after 9/11, "We're not at war, we're having a nervous breakdown."
It's ironic that the man who built his writing career out of playing the role of a drug-crazed madman could see the truth so clearly.
I would disagree with Hunter only to the extent of arguing that we are at war, but it's a kind of war unlike any we've ever had to fight. Maybe the word "war" isn't even the right word to use for it, I don't know. But whatever it is, we're using the wrong strategy and the wrong tactics and the wrong weapons to fight it.
I slightly disagree with the Guardian article. Al Qaeda has attained its biggest goal: the worldwide (and ongoing) confrontation between the West and the Muslim world. (Thanks to the Cheney/Rove administration.) The more specific goals about Saudi Arabia and Irsrael are just details, basically justifications for the other goal. This goal of perpetual conflict is perfectly matched by the PNAC crowd that runs the White House. Their semantic trick, "war on terrorism," is proof of this. To say, war on Iraq, war on China, etc, is to use the word in its literal sense. To say, war on terrorism is to use it in its euphemistic sense. Like war on crime, war on obesity, etc.
Their sleight of hand trick has been to use the word in its euphemistic sense, but expect it to be treated in its literal sense. In this they have been astonishingly successful. A war is something finite. It ends with a treaty or military defeat. There can be no end to a war on terrorism. Like war on crime it's an ongoing thing. You cannot kill all criminals and they do not have a governing group that can sign treaties for them. Same with terrorists.
So we are left with a perpetual conflict, a way of life. Like police versus law breakers. This administration is well aware of this. And they are aware of the benefits of this. To say, war on Iraq, is one thing. To make this illegal invasion and occupation acceptable, it is called a part of the war on terrorism.
Since any conflict, including aggressive attack and invasion of a country, can be called, war on terrorism, this group has a blank check to take military action against any nation it wants. And this blank check by its very nature has no expiration date.
Al Qaeda and the PNACers running this country have the same goal: perpetual conflict. How can bin Laden not be happy? His enemy is his greatest ally.
Given this intense symbiotic relationship, the Guardian has understated the success of al Qaeda.
I see the rest did you good. An outstanding post. Nice work, B!
One small point: Although failure may or may not be an option (an outcome one chooses), it is ever a POSSIBILITY.
well said
I also believe the american predilection to declare war on everything is so stupid, and has never worked: the war on poverty, the ear on drugs and the war on terrorism, none of it will every be anything but a protracted struggle with little insight into how to actually win anything.
It will also predicate every decision on fear
based on these comments, you could say the hamas and islamic jihad have succeeded in israel as well
what scares me is in deed how short term everything is in america
the next election, the last poll numbers, today's dow jones, and let's completely forget our own retirement, and our own children
i also fear the influence of business on government. one day we will be governed by companies with little or no interest in anyone's welfare beyond profits
one day we will be governed by companies with little or no interest in anyone's welfare beyond profits
Unfortunately, that day arrived some time ago.
I think we can all agree that Osama bin Laden is a madman.
I think this is a mistake. It is the same as deciding he is evil or that he hates freedom. It is not a reasonable explanation for 9/11.
Until we are prepared to understand why he did it, we cannot hope to develop a strategy to beat him. This was something that surprised me immediately after the attack.
Trying to understand why it happened was immediately labelled the equivalent of condoning and excusing it. Condoning is, of course, treason and thus attempting to understand was treason.
We were left with a fight against mad men who hate freedom and that shuts off all debate about policy responses. It leaves us with only one reasonable course of action: forever war.
If we really understand why he did it, we may see much better options.
billmon, the right dichotomy is not secular vs religious in this context. It's secular vs theocratic.
CNN footage: US Soldiers execute Iraqi man, cheer.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.literati.org/article5365.htm
young soldier describes how 'awesome' it was.
The spin cycle is certainly a major political game now, maybe THE Game. It's as if the politicos were all Zippy (the Pinhead) clones. Nevertheless, i don't think you simply equate the two, not yet. Since the 19th c., the chief mechanism of bourgeois domination of the state has been corruption of the officials. I think that's still true today. Just follow the money trail and you'll come to new understanding. Iraq is about photo-ops for the Campaign to Reanoint the Acting President. Iraq is also about funnelling huge amounts of cash to firms affiliated with Bush, Cheney, Perle and the rest of the rats. Racism will also explain a great deal about US behaviour in Iraq.
Things will get real when the bills have to be paid. Bills can't be paid in spin, so there'll be real sweat, tears, and blood to be shed.
There is a tendency in the west to play down - or ignore - the extent of Bin Laden's success. The US and UK governments regard mentioning it as disloyal or heretical.
My father (a Holocaust survivor who survived by posing as a Catholic in Poland) said that in the later stages of the war, as Germany began to lose, you'd hear radio reports which talked about "troop redeployments" or "consolidations." Of course, these actually just meant "retreats."
If we really understand why he did it, we may see much better options
To play devil's advocate here, in light of the fact that every damn thing this administration has told us thus far has turned out to be first rate bullsh*t, a logical question to follow would be: How do we know bin Laden did it? Because George W. Bush, the President-Select of the United States, told us he did? Because there was a video shot after 9/11 showing bin Laden discussing how quickly and surprisingly the Twin Towers came down after the planes hit them? If you remember, by that same time the media was dragging out one engineering expert after another with exactly the same comments and questions about the WTC -- and those engineers weren't accused of also masterminding 9/11. As for bin Laden being curious about it, he is a civil engineer by profession. So what other evidence have we seen that bin Laden is the one who "committed" 9/11?
This keeps bouncing in and out of my mind each time I hear another White House lie exposed. Why do we all choose to disbelieve all the other statements and yet firmly believe Bush on this one?
I do understand exactly what you're saying, Billmon. I suppose I'm just wishing that there were better language for it. It's not even secular vs. theocratic, because that leaves an awful large chunk of people with nowhere to go.
Perhaps it's a case of the people who believe everyone should be beholden to his or her own religion (even a conscious rejection of religion is a religion) versus the people who believe everyone should be beholden to their religion. One of the great failings of the English language is that we don't have words for this.
And this is tremendously off-topic, and I apologise. Just thinking out loud.
I don't believe Bush, I believe the Clinton FBI, which investigated the first Trade Center attack.
As to the post, why did anyone expect anything else from George Bush. This was about gotcha politics from the start. Has everyone forgotten the Rove PowerPoint presentation about the political benefits of invading Iraq. It was exposed in January of 2002 I think, or spring 2002.
Rumsfeld also decided to play Napoleon with our Army. He is trying to prove the failed theory of "small footprint invasions", and we are seeing the predicted results.
The new reality is this "how can you tell the Republican Leaders in Washington DC ? Check for people with less than ten toes.
At the risk of being labeled a conspiracy freak, I agree with CJW. Face it, Bush lies so much that he has destroyed his credibility. I think his mind is a muddle of prevarications, half truths, exaggerations and wild-eyed but self serving fantasies. Why should we believe his take on 9/11? He isn't helping the Kean Commission to discover the truth and there seems to be an awful lot of unanswered questions hovering over this sorrowful event.
Why the Air Force stand down? Why such a failure of our intelligence networks? Why did the towers fall so perfectly? Why weren't FBI agents listened to. Why wasn't that computer impounded? It goes on and on interminably.
One thing is certain, though. GWB was a clear cut beneficiary of this terrible tragedy. That alone is enough to make me suspicious. We know now what a miserable wretch this person has turned out to be. Time for Congress to demand answers on what really happened on 9/11. So far it seems that relatives of some of the victims have been doing much of the heavy lifting. Perhaps, the Commission will do its duty letting the chips fall where they may. But, with so many Rethuglicans on it, don't hold your breath waiting for justice and truth, particularly as to what Bush knew and when he knew it.
"...If we really understand why [Osama] did it..."
There are several reasons why Osama's thoughts and intentions don't matter.
One is that everything he thinks he knows about us is wrong.
Another is that there is, and will be, only one war: an American civil war.
Re: secular vs. religious
In The Psychology of War, Lawrence LeShan proposes the terms 'sensory realty' and 'mythic reality' to label two different ways of interpreting our experiences. Sensory reality is, basicly, the world as seen in scientific terms--measurements, cause and effect, defining terms by agreement, negotiation, compromise, etc. Mythic reality is the fairy-tale conflict between Good and Evil--Lord of the Rings or, in an appalling combination of myth and the genre of near-future-speculation, the Left Behind series. Science is effective, but hard to understand; myth is exhilirating, exciting, and ultimately not effective. So what we are seeing is the temporary triumph of myth over sense.
Until we see the more permanent triumph of reality over myth.
There are several reasons why Osama's thoughts and intentions don't matter.
I didn't understand either of the reasons cited. The reason I think they matter is I want to defend myself against him. His intentions don't matter? They sure do if I want to foil him.
One is that everything he thinks he knows about us is wrong.
I don't really know what he thinks he knows about us. I hope it is wrong. We should be able to take advantage of that.
Another is that there is, and will be, only one war: an American civil war.
I didn't get this. If you mean the only way we can lose is if Americans start fighting among themselves when the costs and bodies pile up, you are probably right. But I don't think the issue is about losing. If the US wants to pay the price, they can not lose forever.
Winning is a different story. Not losing is not winning. I want to win, and because I want to win, I want to understand my enemy.
Maybe the word you are looking for, Billmon, in place of "war" is "Jihad." Religious fundamentalists, ours and "their's" have taken the internal struggle, wrestling the angel so to speak, and turned the jihad outward. They have walled in their minds and projected what should be an internal drive to overthrow the darkness within themselves and placed that struggle outside of themselves and onto the world; because for the weak it it is easier and more enticing to kill thousands and lay waste to cities than it is too change their own hearts and lives. What we are witnessing and experiencing is the fevered nightmares of twisted souls battling monsters of their own creation. They have found each other, and they feel that their beliefs have been confirmed as right; they are fighting the righteous fight and have achieved their higher purpose. Bin Laden and Bush are in a karmic marriage, where they seem to be at war, they are in reality united.
This is a very dangerous mode, a true battle of absolutes. And there is no way to win because to stop fighting is to loose one's purpose, one's identity and people who are so devoid of self reflection would sooner die and kill everyone on the planet before they face their own evil and lack of identity in the immensity of the universe.
We must all resist the urge to follow along and turn our fear and anger outward. While surely we have legitimate reasons to be afraid and angery, we must first turn our attention inside ourselves, understand where we are acting from before we act, so that we act with love and not our of fear and hate. Even Bush and bin Laden are as much a part of ourselves as our friends and family. I know this in my head, but I have yet to feel this in my heart.
Damn billmon! Excellent post! Been missing your writing lately...
Maybe the word "war" isn't even the right word to use for it, I don't know. But whatever it is, we're using the wrong strategy and the wrong tactics and the wrong weapons to fight it.
Why is this so. Perhaps, as has been noted, one cannot wage a "war" against "terrorism" (an idea; or set of ideas). Conventional weapons are not correct for destroying [a] heart. And Hunter knows about Vietnam first hand, the era the politics.. which were slightly different being there from being told about being there. I don't want to debate Hunter here,... but I was there, too. In my view the times are vastly different, then and now. This leaves Iraq -- where we are technically fighting a sort of war -- but which has practically zero to do with "terrorism". This administration seeks any stand it can: and TERROR equals 'sound byte'. Osama and Wubya are curiously aligned. We are doomed as long as this weasel-group are in power.
Whatever else. Whoever. Want BushCo out... VOTE BLUE.
Billmon, it is a great post. You really top out in long-form. Always look forward to reading you, astute, hip, smart all the way home. Thanks for sharing yourself with us...
Billmon: a couple of weeks ago I e-mailed you a photoshop montage of Oama before a Mission Accomplished sign -- how prescient.
Al Qaeda is winning. The material destruction on 9/11 was just the first installment, and will be seen to be small potatoes when the final tally of damage to American society is made. By securing the position of this worthless, un-American Administration and causing it to over-react in Iraq and metathasize the terror problem, Al Qaeda has successfully planted a cancer in the American system. Our America may be soon be unrecognizable.
As a European, I increasingly wonder if the major problem of US public discourse is the unbelievable chasm between rational and non-rational thinking (cultures). Of course, I don't know enough about the US to be sure or even really credible about this, but I recently reread some Immanuel Kant about physics and metaphysics and things we can speak about and things we cannot. And then I came across one of those anthologies of quotations of the two Bushes which are in fashion over here at the moment. Now, coherence is in many cases certainly not what you could accuse the Bushes of. There are loose ends, non sequiturs, illogical conjunctions, sudden leaps of thought wherever you look.
Could it be that all you rationally arguing and splendidly debating people simply do not reach 'the other mentality'? Mind you, this is not to say that Europe does not have its fair share of irrationals (or that I simply exclude myself from that group).
Yeah, that is pretty acurate, Teuton. I have argued with people in politically mixed discussion boards and many of them are not even able to admit minor errors, even when you have them dead to rights with proof backing you up. And those are the people who are fairly literate and can manage a rational argument, albeit, usually one based on false premises. Its is pretty scary and depressing.
And I am the first to admit that me no spell so good. ;)
You are a master at intermittent reinforcement.
Great food for thought. Thanks.
Bush, indeed, has created a government rife with cronyism, nepotism, corruption, self-dealing, insider trading, lack of oversight, sweetheart deals, corporate giveaways, market-distorting preferentialism, special rights for cronies, selective enforcement, war profiteering, use of public lands for private purposes,....
Probably the worst in US history. Certainly the worst since Warren G. Harding's administration.
The corruption alone is reason enough to throw Bush out the window, even if you agree with his policies.
Billmon: Excellent post. Thought about trying to sneak it onto Free Republic? Cause I think it might actually get a decent reception over there as well. I'm not kidding.