Geodog

Reflections on 9-11 and the candidate of revenge

This weblog used to be devoted largely to political essays about the criminal modus operandi of the Bush Administration, and to pointing out under-reported news items, like the Bush Administration's unilateral and unconstitutional suspension of the writ of habeas corpus by creating a new and fictitious legal category, enemy combatant, and detaining U.S. citizens like Jose Padilla. In the 2 years after 9-11, when the media decided that the salvation of the country required pinning wings on the pig who had stolen the election and pretending it could fly, I spent a lot of time writing about the follies and crimes of the Bush Administration. At times I felt like a lone dog baying at the moon.

However, in the last year, I've slowly written fewer and fewer political essays, and spent less time pointing at news stories. In part this was because my changed life circumstances left me less time to write, in part it was because I decided to spend some of that energy actually trying to effect change instead of just writing about it, and in part it was because around the first anniversary of the start of Bush's unilateral War on Iraq, some parts of the media woke up to Bush's lies and started reporting again. So, except for incidents like Abu Ghraib, where I got so outraged at the signals from on high that America now condones torture, I have pretty much ceased to write at length about political matters. I assumed that as Bush's lies became more widely known, and the utter cynicism of his exploitation of the national tragedy of 9-11 for political gain became clearer, his support among the American people would drop precipitously. I trust the long-term judgement of the American people -- you can only fool them so long, although when you have most of the media in your pocket it is a lot easier to keep them fooled for longer. But I have been wrong about Bush' support, or at least misjudged how much it would drop. About half the country, plus or minus 5%, still plans on voting for him on November 2.

I have racked my brains trying to understand the American people's support for Bush. The 5% up or down can be explained by the media frenzy of the week about Swift boats or National Guard service or similar garbage (while the media continues to ignore issues like the economy, the environment, health care, Iraq, and Afghanistan). But what about the other 45-50%, most of whom are patriotic Americans who don't condone torture and do believe in the U.S. constitution? This weekend I was listening to a father of one of the U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq being interviewed. He said that his son had died in the battle against terrorism. I was amazed. Nobody with any experience in the Middle East thinks that Bush's War on Iraq has done anything positive about terrorism -- quite the reverse. From pulling Special Forces out of Afghanistan to send to Iraq and focusing scarce security-cleared Arabic translation assets on Iraq instead of Al-Qaeda to providing Muslims the world over a second rallying cry against the United States, Bush's War on Iraq has been a giant gift to Al-Qaeda. As Richard Clark said, it was as though Bush was under the mind control of Osama bin Laden in his cave when he decided to make war on Iraq and enrage the Arab world.

The only way I can understand the viewpoint of the many American patriots who support Bush is that they are so traumatized by the terrorist attack on 9-11 that they want revenge, and Bush is the candidate of revenge. What Bush promises is to strike and kill the people who killed us. It satisfies the visceral urge to hit back at the people that hit us. The fact that he isn't actually killing the people who killed the victims of 9-11, and that he is actually helping further their aims is secondary. Bush promises revenge, and he promises to satisfy the emotional need many people feel to hit back. How do you compete with that?

The difficulty of dealing with terrorism is that all the successful strategies are long-term, and they involve penetration of the terrorist network, the intelligent and ruthless application of force against a very small group of people, the cadre of the terrorists, and ameliorating the grievances of the people that the terrorists spring from, so as to separate the two. This takes a lot of patience, a lot of intelligence work, and the willingness to admit that some of the grievances of the terrorists are shared by the larger population and that therefore they need to be resolved (notice how Saudi Arabia very quietly expelled U.S. troops from the Hejaz during Bush's war on Iraq, a key demand of Al-Qaeda). These are very hard things to do in any case, and they require a lot of nuance.

Long-term nuanced strategies are not in the least bit emotionally satisfying, and successful ones would require taking a hard look at some of our own policies in the Middle East and risking angering some domestic constituencies and some supposed allies in the Middle East. It is much easier and emotionally satisfying to proclaim a policy of revenge, and to insinuate that everybody who disagrees with your policy is pro-terrorist. Apparently a policy of revenge is also a key to domestic electoral success. Too bad it also guarantees increased support for Al-Qaeda world-wide, decreased sympathy for American political aims, and more terrorism. Just ask the French about their experience in Algeria, the Israeli military about their experience in Lebanon, or reflect on our own experience in Vietnam to understand how well the policies of revenge worked. Contrast them with the more successful recent policies of the British with the IRA, and the Spanish goverment with the ETA.

We are living in dangerous times. I hope enough people use their heads as well as their hearts on November 2.