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

i missed this reply. i guess i still think that there is a danger in saying (to use a little hyperbole) “yeah, it sucks now, and we did some dirty work now, but sometime far in the future, this will be the best thing that ever happened. trust me.”

regardless of what you think bush believes, grant, what do you think? does the (far-off) end justify the means?

here is an interesting article which recounts how

…Bush had three opportunities, long before the war, to destroy a terrorist camp in northern Iraq run by Abu Musab Zarqawi, the al-Qaida associate who recently cut off the head of Nicholas Berg. But the White House decided not to carry out the attack because, as the story puts it:

‘[T]he administration feared [that] destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.’
…
[T]he problem, from Bush’s perspective, was that this was the only tangible evidence of terrorists in Iraq. Colin Powell even showed the location of the camp on a map during his famous Feb. 5 briefing at the U.N. Security Council. The camp was in an area of Iraq that Saddam didn’t control. But never mind, it was something. To wipe it out ahead of time might lead some people?in Congress, the United Nations, and the American public?to conclude that Saddam’s links to terrorists were finished, that maybe the war wasn’t necessary. So Bush let it be.

In the two years since the Pentagon’s first attack plan, Zarqawi has been linked not just to Berg’s execution but, according to NBC, 700 other killings in Iraq. If Bush had carried out that attack back in June 2002, the killings might not have happened. More: The case for war (as the White House feared) might not have seemed so compelling. Indeed, the war itself might not have happened.

here’s the link: http://slate.msn.com/id/2100549/

which would indicate to me a pretty big failure by bush in the “war on terror.”

I think this is from 60 minutes…a similar theme, but this time from retired general Anthony Zinni. (“From 1997 to 2000, he was commander-in-chief of the United States Central Command, in charge of all American troops in the Middle East. That was the same job held by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf before him, and Gen. Tommy Franks after.” When he retired the Bush administration made him special envoy to the Middle East.)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/21/60minutes/main618896.shtml

Zinni says Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time – with the wrong strategy. And he was saying it before the U.S. invasion. In the months leading up to the war, while still Middle East envoy, Zinni carried the message to Congress: ?This is, in my view, the worst time to take this on. And I don?t feel it needs to be done now.?

But he wasn?t the only former military leader with doubts about the invasion of Iraq. Former General and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Centcom Commander Norman Schwarzkopf, former NATO Commander Wesley Clark, and former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki all voiced their reservations.

Zinni believes this was a war the generals didn?t want ? but it was a war the civilians wanted.

?I can’t speak for all generals, certainly. But I know we felt that this situation was contained. Saddam was effectively contained. The no-fly, no-drive zones. The sanctions that were imposed on him,? says Zinni.

?Now, at the same time, we had this war on terrorism. We were fighting al Qaeda. We were engaged in Afghanistan. We were looking at ‘cells’ in 60 countries. We were looking at threats that we were receiving information on and intelligence on. And I think most of the generals felt, let’s deal with this one at a time. Let’s deal with this threat from terrorism, from al Qaeda.?

Al Qaeda has more than 18,000 militants ready to strike and the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq has accelerated recruitment to the ranks of Osama bin Laden’s network, a leading London think-tank said on Tuesday.

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?photoid=/cp/news/top/i/osama200.jpg&floc=FF-RTO-rontz&idq=/ff/story/0002%2F20040525%2F0602611246.htm&sc=rontz

I guess the other failure of the war on terror is that the war on terror itself has become a terror for thousands of people. This is an article on Amnesty International’s warnings about how the Bush administration’s policies are making the world more dangerous for everyone.

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040526.wxrights26/BNStory/International/

Denial of fair trial is an abuse of rights and risks converting perpetrators into martyrs," the report says.
That is why Amnesty wants ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to be tried in accordance with international standards and why it opposes military trials for the al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners being kept at Guantanamo, she says.
The report cites some terrible ironies: that the war in Iraq was launched ostensibly to reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction, although the world is swamped with small arms and conventional weapons that kill more than half a million people a year.
What’s more, Ms. Khan says, many countries have relaxed controls on arms exports to governments known to have appalling human-rights records — in the name of combatting terror.

Sorry I didn’t respond to Laryn earlier, but I think it’s important to keep the issue of how the Bible brings its guidance to bear on this current situation in play on *cino. Yes, I think because Christ claims lordship over the end of all things, judgments about right and wrong can only be made through him. An evaluation of effectiveness in Iraq at this stage is laughable. We can evaluate if Bush’s actions have met certain goals that have been set up by the administration, but the achievement of Bush’s ultimate vision will take much longer than a year and a half, and certainly longer than Bush’s one or two terms in office to confirm.

Has anyone seen the new Errol Morris film “The Fog of War”? McNamara’s insights into how victories determine the rightness or wrongness of action is old as humanity itself, and therefore very relevant to our current discussion. I believe at one point he says that he would have been tried and convicted of war crimes if the outcomes of his action had been different. The implication there is that he was participating in crimes against humanity, but because the result fell in his favor, he was not found guilty.

i want to make sure I’m understanding you, grant. as i understand it right now, what you are saying is that:

(1) [b:32499e2658]we cannot judge right or wrong[/b:32499e2658]—in this case because we don’t know the outcome of bush’s “ultimate vision” yet ([i:32499e2658]which means, basically, that we just need to shut up and accept the ‘trust us’ mantra that is about all that comes out of the white house these days.[/i:32499e2658]), and

(2) you are affirming that [b:32499e2658]it doesn’t matter what you do, it just matters what happens as a result of it[/b:32499e2658] ([i:32499e2658]which is, in some permutation, the philosophy of abortion-clinic firebombers and their ilk[/i:32499e2658]).

victories may determine how history (for a time) judges a person’s actions, but that doesn’t mean that “victories determine the rightness or wrongness of action.” i, too, think biblical guidance is important, but that guidance is largely what brings me to the conclusion that the actions of the administration have been largely unchristian, immoral, and unGodly. (and at the moment the results of the ‘war on terror’ mark it as a failure).

again, i hope and pray that God will use an awful situation and the mistakes of sinful people for good in the final analysis—but even if so, it won’t mean that this administration did the right thing, it will just mean that God is bigger than our screw-ups.

This administration specializes in releasing reports that supports its causes and retracting it later after it has served its purpose but proved to be false. I’ve never seen any government do it as much as this one. Either it’s utter incomptence or it’s a strategy that calculates that people will hear the good news and not hear the retraction.

In this case, the state department released a report that showed that the number of terror attacts have gone down to levels not seen since the 1960s. The incidents have actually gone up, so the departement had to backpedal.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1236520,00.html

This administration specializes in releasing reports that supports its causes and retracting it later after it has served its purpose but proved to be false. I’ve never seen any government do it as much as this one.

Considering your age, Dan, I can’t imagine you’ve “seen” many governments, period.

Laryn,

I absolutely believe it is our task to judge right from wrong. But I do not agree with people who judge right and wrong based only on cause and effect and that’s what I think several people are doing in this discussion. Even if Bush’s plan did get the desired effect (democracy in Iraq and a democratic turn in the Middle East) after these two years, that does not necessarily mean his plan was right or good. One hundred or two hundred years down the road when all the world is a democracy, certain historical events might show that the democratic idea of freedom (just a few hundred years in the making) was a sham. Then Bush’s actions would appear very wrong and evil. What makes Bush’s actions wrong is that they are not consistent with Biblical principles for peace. They are based on faith in state sovereignty and natural (God-less) human rights. Cause and effect is a human measuring rod that is useful, but should not become our religious center for all truth judgments.