catapult magazine

Here’s an article claiming Bush’s strongest support (for fighting terrorism) is unfounded. It raises some interesting (and valid) points.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/opinion/16KRUG.html

much of the talk related to the commission has been surrounding the pre-9/11 strategy of the administration, and clinton’s policies—because that commission is charged with investigating 9/11. this issue of whether iraq helped or hurt the “war on terror” is probably more critical to our discussion. this link talks about it—and i’ve clipped a piece for those who don’t want to go through the registration process.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28976-2004Mar27.html

Clarke depicts the president as tersely demanding that his staff look for links between the Sept. 11 attacks and Iraq. He charges that, for Bush and his advisers, attacking Iraq was “a rigid belief, received wisdom, a decision already made and one that no fact or event could derail.” In the end, through the Iraq war, “we delivered to al Qaeda the greatest recruitment propaganda imaginable.”

Clarke’s complaint resonates with some other former administration officials. Rand Beers, who served as counterterrorism chief after Clarke, has voiced the same complaint and is now foreign policy adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry (Mass.). Flynt Leverett, a former CIA analyst and Middle East specialist who left Bush’s National Security Council staff a year ago, also agrees.

“Clarke’s critique of administration decision-making and how it did not balance the imperative of finishing the job against al Qaeda versus what they wanted to do in Iraq is absolutely on the money,” Leverett said.

He said that Arabic-speaking Special Forces officers and CIA officers who were doing a good job tracking Osama bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and other al Qaeda leaders were pulled out of Afghanistan in March 2002 to begin preparing for the war against Iraq. “We took the people out who could have caught them,” he said. “But even if we get bin Laden or Zawahiri now, it is two years too late. Al Qaeda is a very different organization now. It has had time to adapt. The administration should have finished this job.”

Jessica Stern, Harvard University lecturer and author of “Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill,” also agrees with Clarke. “It was a distraction on the war on terrorism and made it more difficult to prosecute because the al Qaeda movement used the war in Iraq to mobilize new recruits and energize the movement,” she said. “And we apparently sent Special Forces from Afghanistan, where they should have been fighting al Qaeda, to Iraq.”

But Eliot Cohen, director of strategic studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and an advocate of attacking Iraq, argues that Clarke’s analysis wrongly assumes the battle against terrorism paralyzes the government when it comes to waging other wars. He said that if one assumes that the fight against terrorism is a multi-year effort that could stretch decades, then “there is nothing the U.S. government can do for 30 years but fight al Qaeda.” He noted that the bulk of the fighting in Iraq was carried out by military units, such as the 101st Airborne, that were not involved in Afghanistan.

Cohen agreed, however, that a war the scale of the Iraq invasion could divert the attention of senior officials from other issues, such as fighting terrorism. Pat Lang, who was head Middle East and South Asia intelligence in the Defense Intelligence Agency for seven years, said: “When you commit as much time and attention and resources as we did to Iraq, which I do not believe is connected to the worldwide war against the jihadis, then you subtract what you could commit to the war on terrorism. You see that especially in the Special Forces commitment, as we have only so many of them.”

It’s easier to criticize the administration’s move against Hussein’s regime now that we know Iraq did not have WMD (a discovery that surprised much of the world, even Hans Blix) and now that many AQ people have escaped or are in Pakistan (where the U.S. military is not allowed to go). Donald Rumsfeld had an interesting comment this Sunday. He said that his job is to look forward to possibilities and to act on potential threats and at the time of the administration’s decisions, they did so. Rumsfeld said this in order to contrast his own task from that of Clarke and the commission, whose task is to investigate and evaluate (after the fact) the post-911 response. Is it possible that both the Bush administration and the commission could be right according to their own perspectives—the administration according to its “in-the-moment” judgment calls and the commission according to its own “looking back” judgments?

Nice distinction, Grant. It was the point I was trying to make (“trying” being the operative word) with my post about intelligence and decision-making in World War II.

Actually, you’ll recall that lots of people criticized the administration long before it was known that WMD didn’t exist in Iraq. This just adds fuel to the fire. The fact that the administration might have honestly thought there were WMDs in Iraq does not mean that they were right to invade.

Also, grant, are you suggesting that there were lots of AQ terrorists in Iraq who then fled to Pakistan after the American invasion. Because that’s news to me.

grant—i agree that the tasks of the administration and the commission are very different, and that they shed different light on the actions that were taken. i think, however, that they are not completely different planes. the commission is investigating not only the actions that were taken, but the “looking forward” process that the administration used in the past that led to these actions, based on what was known at the time.

here is clarke’s argument, boiled down to two points, as i understand it. i didn’t see his “meet the press” interview, but i skimmed it later.

1. [b:01d24e7735]the administration did not do well at looking forward pre-9/11[/b:01d24e7735]. they downgraded terrorism as a priority and weren’t proactive despite increased intelligence chatter. it was an important issue, but not an urgent issue. (clarke says he sent a strategy for dealing with al qaeda in january 01 and couldn’t get a meeting about it. the president says in may that he wants a strategy, no more swatting flies, but doesn’t ask about it again. after 9/11 they ask about iraq, then decide not yet, and they suddenly have a strategy that looks a lot like clarke’s of january. clarke wants the jan. and the post-9/11 strategies declassified to compare what changes 9 months of work yielded)

2. [b:01d24e7735]post-9/11 they also did not do well at looking forward in regard to the terrorist threat[/b:01d24e7735]. they viewed everything through the lense of a war on iraq, which hurt rather than helped the cause:
a. because it stepped into al qaeda’s propaganda and helped them to recruit and radicalize a whole new generation.
b. because our infrastructure is in drastic need of money for protection against future attacks (see spain) and the war in iraq has drained our pockets
c. because we diverted personnel and resources from the campaign in afghanistan, which has allowed al qaeda to regain its balance and morph into something much harder to destroy, a more decentralized system.

unfortunately for bush, clarke is very articulate, and his story seems to be corroborated by other insiders that have now become outsiders to the administration. he also has been in politics for a long time (he worked for reagan and both bush’s..he was cheney and wolfowitz’s ally during the first gulf war…he also seems very adamant that he has no desire to remain in politics.)

Dan: No, I am not giving you any info you weren’t aware of. Al Qaeda fled from Afghanistan into Pakistan, not from Iraq into Pakistan.

Laryn: Even if people were saying some of the same things Clarke is saying now, that does not mean it’s a valid or even “true” judgment. Whether it was “now” or “then”, we still have not seen what will come of all this. The Bush administration certainly does have a long-range plan in mind when it comes to a war on terror. For Rumsfeld and many others in the administration, this looking back stuff that the commission is doing is necessary but not particularly effective when seen in the broad context of a long and enduring war on terror (it can only be effective as a way to discredit Bush in an election year). The U.S. attack on and rebuilding of Iraq (no matter what the administration’s rhetoric was about WMD and Hussein possibly being tied to Al Qaeda) is part of a future-oriented plan of establishing democracies in the Middle East which, according to the Bush administration, will give the people a taste of “freedom” so they will no longer desire to use terror. (This may seem like an odd assumption and one we might disagree with, but do you understand the logic of what they’re thinking?: Terrorism is bred in poor nations and is a tool used when people have no other outlets for affecting change in their governments or in the world. Therefore, according to this logic, the solution is democracy: free elections and the prosperity that comes with it, which will deflate the anger and restlessness of those who might turn to terrorism).

I realize that I’ve raised this question before, but it continues to press itself upon us (“War and Peace” wasn’t the first to deal with it. The same question was being answered in John’s “The Book of Revelation” and in “Daniel” from the OT. The historical reality can also be seen in Tarkovsky’s brilliant film: “Andrei Rublev”). The question is this: HOW ARE WE TO KNOW WHAT IS RIGHT OR WRONG BEFORE WE’VE REACHED THE FINAL RESULT OF ALL OUR ACTIONS? Both Clarke and Bush are weighing the righness and wrongness of the U.S.‘s anti-terrorism campaign according to the cause and effect model that they trust and which has been fully operational throughout the history of Western culture. According to this model, we can judge the rightness of our actions by whether it effectively met our goal (in terms of the scientific method: whether the evidence proves our hypothesis). Though both Clarke and Bush are using the same model for judging, the two are operating on a different timeline. Clarke is willing to judge Bush’s effectiveness already at this point, only a few years after 9-11. Bush points to improvements in Iraq as part of a long-range goal that is not completely shown yet. Clarke is right that Bush can’t say his policy toward terror has been successful YET (though it is a very timely thing for Bush to say in an election year), but neither can Clarke say it has been unsuccessful…not yet, anyway.

After fleshing out the dilemma in this way, I’d like to know how participants in this discussion think they can back up their own judgments about the effectiveness of Bush’s actions or the correctness of Clarke’s criticisms?

Both Clarke and Bush are weighing the righness and wrongness of the U.S.’s anti-terrorism campaign according to the cause and effect model that they trust and which has been fully operational throughout the history of Western culture. According to this model, we can judge the rightness of our actions by whether it effectively met our goal (in terms of the scientific method: whether the evidence proves our hypothesis). Though both Clarke and Bush are using the same model for judging, the two are operating on a different timeline.

I disagree with the way you frame this debate. Bush may be operating on a cause and effect model—at least he hopes the end justifies his means. The end being democracy and peace—the means being essentially unilateral, “pre-emptive”, illegal invasion of a sovereign country.

But from what I’ve heard so far, I think Clarke is making many, if not most of his judgements based on stuff he knew before the Iraq invasion, not stuff that has happened since. One example: his claim that the Bush administration was eager to pin the blame for 9-11 on Iraq when no such evidence existed. If this is true, this shows that the subsequent decision to attack Iraq was not based on evidence that terrorism emanated from there. This war was sold to the American people by connecting Iraq to terror (and 9-11), but it seems the administration had other reasons. I don’t think democracy was high on the list, although it was a nice addition for propagandistic purposes.

I didn’t hear Clarke blaming Bush for anything that has happened since the invasion, except increased Arab anger toward America which makes it easier for groups like AQ to recruit. I don’t think anyone would dispute that though.

grant, you suggested that Clarke is a short-term thinker and Bush is a long-term thinker. I don’t see any evidence that Clarke is thinking short-term—in fact, I’m quite sure he has America’s long-term interests in mind by calling everyone’s attention to the Bush administration’s duplicity and deception. Yo, mrsanniep, blood temperature rising?

Bush’s so-called long-term thinking about establishing democracy in the middle-east is based on the assumption grant mentioned: that giving people the vote and some buying power will make them better people. Which in turn is based on another assumption, I mean myth: that people act according to what is in their best self interest—that people act rationally. It doesn’t take much looking around to see that this position doesn’t hold up.

I wish as much as the next guy that the Middle East would be democratic and that people there would be more free, but by invading Iraq while continuing to hold Israel’s hand, America has only exacerbated its alienation from, and emnity with the Arab people.

HOW ARE WE TO KNOW WHAT IS RIGHT OR WRONG BEFORE WE’VE REACHED THE FINAL RESULT OF ALL OUR ACTIONS?

grant, this question, as i’m sure you’re aware, implies that we will never know what is right or wrong—because we will never know the final result of all our actions. see adam and eve and a piece of fruit for proof of that. there is no such thing as the “final result” of all our actions. there will always be something else that is affected by something that was affected by something we’ve done.

determining the rightness and wrongness of actions is not something that takes place beginning with the decision at point a, and then is put on pause until the “final result” at point b. it is an interactive process that continues along and is constantly checking up on itself, adjusting to new situations and realities. (for the record, i don’t believe that the end justifies the means, either—so part of this process is definitely concerned with the details surrounding when the decision was made).

i would say that some of the indicators that clarke mentions are important to consider even at this stage before the “final result” is known:
1) did the iraq war divert personnel and resources from the campagin against al qaeda two years ago, when it would have been easier to cripple the organization—resulting in a stronger, more decentralized al qaeda that will be harder to shut down?
2) did it play into al qaeda’s propaganda, squander good will towards the u.s., incite more hatred against the u.s., and cause a lot more people to sympathize with al qaeda’s (and like groups) cause?
3) has it drained our resources—and therefore our ability to use those monies to build up our defenses against groups like al qaeda?

so i would say, at this point in time (when you look at the issue at the time decisions were made and you gauge the answer to these questions now) that if the answer is yes to the questions, then you can conclude that the decision was a poor one.

i sincerely hope that good will come of this war in the “final analysis”—but i still think it was a poor decision.

This guy argues that Condi Rice is at fault not only for 9-11, but also for the Balkan War, this Iraq debacle, Bush Sr’s election loss, the breakup of the Soviet Union…
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040412.wmorris0412/BNStory/International/

Laryn, I use the term “final result” as a response to cause and effect language. When dealing with judgments about right and wrong, it certainly would be better to speak in terms of end, purpose or meaning. I assume that as a servant working in the Kingdom of God, you believe you are working toward an end, a purpose, though you may not think in terms of a “final result”. Your beliefs about what is right and wrong action do not depend only on your current situation with no relation to what happens later. What you do now is done always in relation to some end, otherwise you would not even engage in this conversation we’re having now. Yes, the account of Adam and Eve does show us our limits. The limitations of human knowledge are displayed in sinful humankind, most clearly in the result of sin—the ultimate barrier: death. But Christ’s resurrection makes his promise of being ultimate judge of right and wrong at the end of time authoritative and something for Christians to strive for with the help of Christ’s Spirit.

I don’t think these (“religious”) thoughts about the “political” situation of the 9-11 Commission or the War in Iraq are irrelevant to this discussion. The question of time is a very important one when it comes to making judgements about right and wrong. Bush’s belief that establishing democracies in the world (and I do maintain that Bush’s rhetoric reflects genuine belief) will effect positive change depends on Bush’s broader belief about the purpose/end of humankind: to be what we were born to be—free human beings in a free democratic society. I haven’t read Clarke’s book, but I gather that Clarke’s focus is on security in the U.S. in the recent past, present and in the immediate future. This seems to be a defensive stance that is not consistent with Bush’s longer-range “offensive” against terrorism. Ultimately, though, both strategies are not thinking far enough in the future. Though fighting and the use of force can be effective and achieve results, such activity does not guarantee lasting peace.