Jump to content
IndiaDivine.org

A Mess of George Bush's Own Making John Nichols

Rate this topic


Guest guest

Recommended Posts

S

Fri, 7 Oct 2005 16:57:45 +1000 (EST)

A Mess of George Bush's Own Making

 

 

Excerpt

 

The problem, of course, is that going to Iraq to

confront al Qaida in 2003 was like going to the

Vatican to confront Protestants.

 

Saddam Hussein and his Baathist Party cadres were

a lot of things, but they were never comrades,

colleagues or hosts to the adherents of what Bush

referred to in his speech as " Islamic radicalism, "

" militant jihadism " or " Islamo-fascism. "

 

 

 

http://news./s/thenation/20051006/cm_thenation/127274;_ylt=AiTfiIw4sdke\

cVIW_m5G_iQe6sgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA4MzQ0N2p2BHNlYwMxNzA0

 

 

A Mess of George Bush's Own Making John Nichols

Thu Oct 6, 4:40 PM ET

 

 

 

The Nation -- It is fair to say that a good many

Americans perceive George W. Bush to be a doltish

incompetent who does not know the first thing about

fighting terrorism.

 

But, whatever the president's actual level of

competence may be, it is now clear that he has even

less respect for the intelligence of the American

people than his critics have for his cognitive

capabilities.

 

As the president struggles this week to make a case

for the staying the course that leads deeper into the

quagmire that is Iraq, he is, remarkably, selling

a warmed over version of the misguided take on

terrorism that he peddled before this disasterous

mission was launched.

 

Apparently working under the assumption that no one

has been paying attention over the past two and a half

years, Bush delivered a speech to the National

Endowment for Democracy Thursday in which he dismissed

calls for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

" Some observers also claim that America would be

better off by cutting our losses and leaving Iraq

now, " the president argued, before concluding that,

" It's a dangerous illusion refuted with a simple

question: Would the United States and other free

nations be more safe or less safe with Zarqawi and bin

Laden in control of Iraq, its people and its

resources? " That's a scary scenario. Unfortunately, it

is one that the president created. And it is one that

the president still fails to fully comprehend.

 

To hear the president tell it, the U.S. went to Iraq

to combat bin Laden's al Qaida network.

 

The problem, of course, is that going to Iraq to

confront al Qaida in 2003 was like going to the

Vatican to confront Protestants.

 

Saddam Hussein and his Baathist Party cadres were

a lot of things, but they were never comrades,

colleagues or hosts to the adherents of what Bush

referred to in his speech as " Islamic radicalism, "

" militant jihadism " or " Islamo-fascism. "

 

If any individuals on the planet feared and hated al

Qaida, it was Hussein and his allies. The Iraqi

Baathists were thugs, to be sure, but they were

secularist thugs. Indeed, many of the most brutal acts

of oppression carried out by the Iraqi regime targeted

Islamic militants and governments aligned with the

fundamentalists. The eight-year war between Iraq and

Iran pitted the soldiers of Hussein's secular

nationalism against the armies of the Ayatollah

Khomeini's radical vision of Islam. That is why, while

the United States remained officially neutral in the

war that lasted from 1980 to 1988, it became an

aggressive behind-the-scenes backer of Hussein. As

part of that support, the U.S. State Department in

1982 removed Iraq from its list of states supporting

international terrorism. That step helped to ease the

way for loans and other forms of aid -- such as the

U.S. Agriculture Department's guaranteed loans to Iraq

for purchases of American commodities. It also

signaled to other countries and international agencies

that the U.S. wanted them to provide aid to Hussein --

and if the signal was missed, the Reagan White House

and State Department would make their sentiments

clear, as happened when the administration lobbied the

Export-Import Bank to improve Iraq's credit rating and

provide it with needed financial assistance. If any

lingering doubts about U.S. attitude remained, they

were eased by the December 20, 1983, visit of Donald

Rumsfeld, who was touring the Middle East as President

Reagan's special envoy, for visits with Hussein and

Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.

 

As it happened, the U.S. was reading Hussein right. In

a region where the common catchphrase is " the enemy of

my enemy is my friend, " Hussein was not merely someone

who was fighting a neighboring country. He was

fighting the spread of the radical Islamic

fundamentalism that the U.S. so feared because he was

a committed secularist. Hussein promoted the education

of women and put them in positions of power. Under

Hussein, Christians, Jews and other non-Muslims

enjoyed a greater measure of religious freedom than

they have in most Middle Eastern countries in recent

decades. Hussein included non-Muslims among his

closest advisors, most notably Aziz, a Christian

adherent of the Chaldean Catholic faith that remains

rooted in Iraq.There was a paranoid passion to

Hussein's secularism. He and his vast secret police

network remained ever on the watch for evidence of

Islamic militancy, and when it was found the response

was swift and brutal. It was an awareness of the fact

that Hussein was a bulwark against militant Islam that

led key aides to President George H.W. Bush to argue

against displacing him after the liberation of Kuwait

by a U.S.-led force in 1991.

 

Nothing about Hussein's Baathist ideology changed

during the 1990s. So it came to no surprise to anyone

who knew the region that the 9/11 Commission, after

aggressively investigating the matter, found no

operational relationships existed between al Qaida and

Iraq before the 2003 invasion that toppled Hussein.

 

Now, after having removed the bulwark against militant

Islam, Bush describes an Iraq that is rapidly filling

up with followers of al Qaida, and warns that the

withdrawal of U.S. forces would allow the militants to

" use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain

control of a country, a base from which to launch

attacks and conduct their war against nonradical

Muslim governments. "

 

What Bush did not say in his speech Thursday was that

his own actions had created the dire circumstance he

described.

 

If George Washington's mantra was that he could not

tell a lie, George Bush's is that he cannot admit

a mistake.

 

But the president's refusal to face reality has

isolated him from those who are serious about fighting

the spread of terrorism.

 

General Peter Cosgrove, the former head of Australia's

Defense Forces, rejects the notion that staying the

course is the smart response. In fact, the

well-regarded former commander of the military of a

key U.S. ally, says that withdrawal makes sense

because it will " take one of the focal points of

terrorist motivation away, and that is foreign

troops. "

 

It is Cosgrove who suggested the late 2006 withdrawal

date that has been taken up by U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold

(news, bio, voting record), D-Wisconsin, the first

member of the Senate to urge the development of an

exit-strategy timeline.

 

For those who do not trusts the assessment of an

Australian, consider that Porter Goss, the director of

the Central Intelligence Agency, who says, " The

Iraq conflict, while not a cause of extremism, has

become a cause for extremists. Islamic extremists are

exploiting the Iraq conflict to recruit new, anti-U.S.

jihadists. "

 

The president who argued that Iraq needed to be

invaded in order to fight terrorism has instead opened

up a new country to al Qaida's machinations.

 

The president who argued that the U.S. must continue

to occupy Iraq in order to prevent the spread of

terrorism has instead created a quagmire in which even

the head of his own CIA says that the U.S.

presence is being exploited by terrorists to recruit

new, anti-U.S. jihadists.

 

Now, George Bush argues for staying the course.

 

Perhaps Osama bin Laden would agree with that

strategy.

 

But the American people are wising up.

 

The latest Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll tells us that

only 32 percent of those approve of Bush's handling of

the war. A remarkable 59 percent now say that the

invasion a mistake. And an even more remarkable 63

percent say they want to see some or all U.S. troops

withdrawn.

 

John Nichols covered the first Gulf War and has

frequently reported from the Middle East over the past

two decades. For more of his analysis of the

administration's misguided approach, check out his

book The Rise and Rise of Dick Cheney, out in

paperback November 2 from The New Press.

 

Like this article? Try 4 issues of The Nation at home

(and online) FREE

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...