London
I grieve for those injured and killed in the London bombings. I grieve for the families and the friends of those injured and killed in the London bombings. We should "find [the terrorists . . . ] and bring them to justice," if I may use President Bush's statement from Gleneagle.
But this must be different. This must not be the charge we took up in 2002 when Bush said, in the State of the Union Address, "Our nation will continue to be steadfast and patient and persistent in the pursuit of two great objectives. First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans, and bring terrorists to justice. And, second, we must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world."
At this rate, it may be a good thing for the people of the U.S. and England that Bush is term limited and Blair has already declared that he will not run again. Three and a half years between essentially identical sentiments has produced a red herring mission in Iraq. Who knows? Maybe London will give the world focus on the stated goal of this "war on terror." Then again, I would hate to have my face turn blue while I waited.
I grieve for those injured and killed in the London bombings. I grieve for the families and the friends of those injured and killed in the London bombings. I hope now that at least their suffering can serve a purpose untainted by the politics of Democrats, Republicans, New Labor, or any other political group.
posted by Andrew Purvis @ 2:11 PM
14 Comments:
What focus do you await so strenuously?
How long do you plan to grieve? Do you plan to grieve some more after the next attack too? And the one after that? Do you plan to be in permanent mourning? I wonder if your listeners could handle your permanent crying.
If you must criticize Bush, it would greatly help your cause if you provided a respectable alternative, preferably one that wouldn’t lead to your permanent mourning.
On the other hand, maybe mainland Europeans will get a backbone now that they’ve been hit closer to home. It’s so cowardly of them to sit on the sidelines while we do the dirty work.
I see no way in which my grief might be suggested as permanent. The reason I chose to quote Bush was to point out that the language he used in 2002 is the same as he has just used here. In 20002, we had the backing of our allies with regard to the pursuit of al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan, where we believed the bulk of them to be. The resolve, however, that Bush claimed, he and his administration quickly surrendered in favor of the more glamorous war in Iraq.
What I would like to see as an alternative is action that follows the tough talk. Bush can be the alternative to the President of the last four and a half years. Indeed, he has the opportunity to be the antidote.
As to the Europeans, you might be forgetting that much of how they have behaved since 9/11 is in response to things that took place on their soil in the 1980s. Perhaps it helps my perspective that in 1986 I was part of a team delivering a presentation on terrorism, so back then I made a study of the (relatively new, at least in its modern incarnation, phenomenon). I remember the Achille Lauro, the Paris café bombings, and the bomb at Leonardo DaVinci Airport (this last a mere four months before I landed there in the same year as the aforementioned presentation).
Had this happened under a Kerry administration (and this is a point some people refuse to comprehend), I would have questioned similar language from the President. It's great for something to say before posing for a photo-op. This is why I mentioned something that Anton neglected to comment on: Democrats. This is not about partisanship. This is about walking with as much toughness as all the talking. We failed with that since 9/11 (we succeeded, by the way, in 1991, during a war I would have preferred not to engage in but that I admitted even then was essentially unavoidable). Maybe we can get it right this time.
I said your grief might become permanent through ominous future attacks. Your grieving doesn’t accomplish anything, yet you rant about Bush without giving an alternative. I speculate that my comment made you mad so you pretend you don’t understand.
As a minor point, I don’t see how switching targets surrenders resolve. I see no basis for this statement, so I think you simply wrote it because it sounds fancy.
This must be in jest. I did not rant about Bush. I ranted about the President. This is about saying one thing and doing another. It happened in 2002. I don't want to see it happen again.
If we are resolved to "bring terrorists to justice," as Bush said we as a nation were, then we should have followed that course. We abandonded that course. I suspect the first and third comments here were made while the commenter was grinning. In case that was not the case, however, I will repeat it here: this is not partisan. If there is a partisan message in the post or the comments, it comes from Mr. Dragan and from him alone.
Your distinction between Bush and “the President” eludes me, as do your allusions to partisanship.
Come to think of it,… If Kerry were president I’d saying the same thing and if there is a partisan message in the post or the comments, it comes from Mr. Purvis and from him alone! I am grinning, but I am right, which makes him wrong ;)
But Bush did exactly what he said he’d do. Bush said “bring terrorists to justice” but that is not all. He also said that we would attack the terrorist infrastructure, those who harbor them, etc.
We did all we could about bringing terrorists to justice, and in Iraq we attacked the support structure. It was an indirect attack, it didn’t do much to Al-Qaeda, but it was the best we could muster at that time. Also there were other reasons for going into Iraq, but they belong in another dreary discussion.
Even if you disagree with our involvement in Iraq, even if you think that Bush’s policy is incoherent, still Bush was very clear about the intent to remove Saddam.
Lastly, there is a basic principle: In interpreting words or actions you should pick the meaning that renders them coherent, rather the interpretation that turns them into nonsense. Andrew, you seem to be laboring under the inverse of this principle when it comes to Bush.
You’re suggesting that mainland Europeans learned how to deal with terrorism in the 1980s. It seems to me that they learned how to cower and hope it all goes away. They are doing so now, hoping that U.S. and Great Britain take care of things without themselves becoming targets, without themselves angering their large, deprived, and angry Muslim minorities. It’s even more obscene that some Europeans think that Britain had it coming, that Britain is at war and these things happen in war. Yet these people fail to note that they are next in line after U.S. and Britain.
Bush’s statements for the photo-op were boring and predictable, yet he had to say something to that effect.
I reckon we have the right foreign policy following 9/11. Andrew, you don’t offer a respectable alternative. For example, grieving and waiting for the next catastrophe is not acceptable. Limiting ourselves to finding the terrorists and bringing them justice is meek yet practically impossible, and won’t prevent the creation of new terrorists. Building up good-will is hard, nearly impossible with extremists, and feels an awful lot like appeasement.
I can't even begin to comprehend from where some of your gross (and frankly personally offensive) mischaracterizations may stem.
In any case, let's begin with the one thing that is so obvious even an idealogue couldn't miss. The distinction between Bush and the President is time. The Presidency is an office that Bush happens to hold at this time. He will not hold that office any time after noon (eastern time) on 1/20/09. There will still be someone in the office of The President, however.
Bush said that we would not rest until we had captured Osama bin Laden and everyone else responsible for 9/11, yet we have all but abandoned the search for bin Laden and others who are known not to be in Iraq. Why?
You say that we attack Iraq in order to attack the support structure for terrorists. That's interesting. I remember four different reasons the White House gave for going to war against Iraq; each reason was presented in a different month, in fact. We were asked, in no particular order, to back the attack against Iraq because we were going to disrupt his WMD program (oops, screwed the pooch on that intel), remove Saddam Hussein from power (one for two), bring democracy to Iraq (technically this has not been achieved, and it looks as if it will be no more democratic than our nation, but hey, most people outside of Switzerland could not define democracy anyway . . . and we still have to see what the constitution looks like), and because he was closely connected to the 9/11 planners. Every piece of evidence the Bush administration presented as connecting Iraq or Hussein to 9/11 has been flatly rejected by the 9/11 Commission (that's two litters of puppies on the way).
I have to say that your contention that the war in Iraq was "the best we could muster at the time" to attack al-Qaeda says that we are a pathetic nation (we had to level a country and kill over 100,000 people in order to have a small effect on our target) or that al-Qaeda is far more nimble than any estimation I have ever heard or read. If we are going to jail leaders whose countries hosted al-Qaeda members, Bush was far ahead of Hussein in the line for prison blues.
I cannot render coherent to an idealogue or a jester (what blend of those two you may be playing at just now I won't hazard a guess) ideas the idealogue refuses to consider or the jester wishes to mock.
Mainland Europe is next? Why? Share your insight in order that you may follow up your successful prediction of an attack in the British Isles. Yes, that's sarcasm. Why? because you have no better idea, unless you are in contact with members of al-Qaeda, than I who is next. Quite honestly, Switzerland probably has a better chance of being hit than France.
I have never suggested we grieve and wait for the next catastrophe. I advocate a real approach to terrorism. That would have meant dealing with Saudi Arabia before Iraq. That would have meant dealing with Syria before Iraq. That would have meant doing unpopular things with long stretched with little to show for the effort.
I never suggested anything approach appeasement. Indeed, the backing off on Afghanistan is closer to an appeasement policy than almost any other course Bush could have taken a couple years ago.
You write that you believe we have the right foreign policy, post 9/11. If that is true, nothing I could propose would sound "respectable" to you. Nothing you say I have proposed has been anywhere in my proposals. That you have chosen to select your reading as if I were writing about people or political parties instead of about policies suggests that the blinders are on. I can see no reason to answer charges that in a forensics competition I could ignore for having been brought up without foundation.
fin
What offended you the most?
You claim to rant about the president but not about Bush. Still Bush is the president until 2009. Your distinction is obscure at best.
Partisanship ought to be irrelevant, but you keep bringing it up. I think what I think regardless of which way the party-lines fall. With this point you’re begging for people to agree with you and prepare to dismiss their disagreements as partisan rant.
The following things must also be said:
1. We haven’t abandoned the search for bin Laden, the search just became more subtle. The CIA is still looking for him, there still is a reward on his head, we still pressure governments not to give him sanctuary.
2. I think the attack on Iraq was an attack on the support structure of terrorism, among other things. But enough about that, we’re there, whatever the reason.
3. I’m not saying that we’re a pathetic nation. There were other costs and benefits besides those. I wouldn’t call Al-Qaeda nimble, just exceptionally dispersed and stealthy.
Mainland Europe is next because they are rich, stable, successful, free, and they share our basic axioms. Mainland Europe is next in line because it is not under terrorist control.
I think we have the right foreign policy, how does that make me unreasonable in your eyes? Since you kept criticizing without providing alternatives, I assigned some to you.
I'll take this in sequence.
What offended me the most is your assumption that my original post was in any way about Bush. It was about the politicizing, by anyone, of terrorist attacks. You have conveniently and repeatedly refused to engage that fact.
My distinction between Bush (the person) and the office of the President may seem obscure in the present, but come 2009 it will be salient fact. That we are talking about two incidents that coincidentally took place during Bush's presidency may make the two seem inseparable, but that is an accident of time, and nothing more.
Partisanship is never irrelevant when it is present. My initial post was not partisan, and my comments here have not been partisan. Everything I have said has come from what I feel about policy and the responsibility of people to follow through on stated commitments, regardless of partisan standing. The inability or unwillingness to distinguish between those two facts is dangerous.
Regarding your numbered points:
1. I never said we have abandoned our search for bin Laden. I said we have all but abandoned it. The language, though I should not have to point this out, indicates a significant reduction in effort. You can call it "subtle," if you wish, but the meaning remains the same. We did reduce our search efforts. We did back away when our own intelligence agencies indicated that we had him essentially cornered. Whatever terminology you or I apply, that is a significant reduction in the effort. I chose to say "all but abandoned." That may be unpalatable to you, but our problem remains a linguistic one.
2. The attack on Iraq was, briefly before and periodically afterward, characterized as an attack on the terrorist infrastructure. Sadly for the people who wish to stand on that claim, not a single report by any intelligence agency in the United States backs it. Worse, they all suggest that it was nonsense. Keep up on the news for more. We are there, and whatever my opinion about our going there, we now have to fix the mess we made. We are failing in that task at present (check with the Iraqis if you think we are oding well with power, water, roads, schools, and other things). We need to do better, but we keep throwing money at companies that don't spend it.
3. There is much we can do. Sadly, we are still trying to fight a more traditional enemy than we are facing. Until we adapt, we will continue to find our actions met with grossly limited success.
Is it your contention, then, that al-Qaeda is driven by (though not necessarily composed of) people who are out to destroy wealth and comfort, at least in so-called Western nations? Part of our difficulty in dealing with terrorists in the past has been our inability (unwillingness?) to consider their aims. We treated Arafat with disdain because of his past, even when his political goals were clear and his efforts to find a solution were sincere. I fear we might be dealing with a similar situation here.
I am not sure what places are, in your view, "under terrorist control." Are we not being attacked now because they control us?
I have said you are unreasonable based upon what I hope is a blindspot to much of what I have been saying. A great deal of the content in my replies to your comments has gone unanswered, yet I am accused of not providing alternatives? You say you want alternatives? I have said I want us to pursue the course of action promised in 2002 (unless that was empty rhetoric in the State of the Union Address). I want to see real pursuit of terrorists. That means going after the planners, not unrelated (or peripherally related, at best) regimes. There were at least a half dozen better targets for "regime change" (a term used to justify our going into Iraq, but an activity that is patently illegal under international law, by the way) at the time we selected Iraq, and every one save North Korea was more closely tied to terrorists than Iraq.
You are welcome to believe what you wish about our policy. I would not begrudge you that. I, too, am welcome to believe what I wish about our policy. Sadly, you seem prepared to assume that your opinions (they are not fact, after all, for either of us) are inherently better than mine. That's arrogance.
Very well, I’ll take it in order.
It’s not an assumption if I expressly say it. And I did: “if you must criticize Bush”. That makes it a premise and not an assumption.
If your post was about politicizing, why don’t you talk about yourself too. For example: Here I am, politicizing the terrorists attacks. You could continue with your actual post:
“… it may be a good thing for the people of the U.S. and England that Bush is term limited and Blair has already declared that he will not run again. Three and a half years between essentially identical sentiments has produced a red herring mission in Iraq. Who knows? Maybe London will give the world focus on the stated goal of this "war on terror." Then again, I would hate to have my face turn blue while I waited.”
This reeks of acrimonious partisanship. Let me translate - sentence 1: thank God Bush can’t run again, sentence 2: Iraq was a mistake, sentence 3: who knows, sentence 4: maybe London will fix Bush’s mistakes, sentence 5: nah, they’re no better.
If daydreaming about 2009 makes your day, go ahead. I duly noted your point. Onward.
Your comments reek of partisanship as well. Example: “The resolve, however, that Bush claimed, he and his administration quickly surrendered in favor of the more glamorous war in Iraq.” Did Bush surrender resolve?
If what you feel about policy is not partisan, then neither is what I feel, or they both are. That’s how it’s irrelevant.
Regarding the numbered points:
1. “All but” is substantially different then “subtle.” The first means almost abandoned, the second means elusive, and I should have added … too boring to televise.
2. I choose to characterize it so for this discussion, since it hits their supporters. It’s far more complex though.
3. I’d measure success in about 10 years.
My contention is that Al-Qaeda is driven by hatred and thirst for power.
I hope you’re not suggesting that bin Laden is making sincere efforts to find a solution other than our destruction. Even if he did, I don’t see how we could overlook his past.
We’re not being attacked because for some reason they can’t attack now.
I don’t respond to all your comments because I choose to not contest the points. I don’t have time to argue every difference and occasionally you’re right.
We are pursuing the course of action promised in 2002.
Regime change was not used to justify going into Iraq. The breaking of the armistice or peace terms was the legal justification.
Again, I am not assuming because I explicitly say it: “…I am right, which makes him [Andrew] wrong.” Nor do I maintain that my opinions are inherently better, that’s why I go through the trouble of explaining them.
You trade low blows too, I don’t see how it’s personal.
We are trading blows, though (perhaps wrongly) I feel I came under fire first. Then again, since this is my blog, it would be difficult for it to be any other way.
The selection you quoted and responded to is interesting, but out of context. In context—the context being that we should not use these attacks for intra-national political gain—it is a goood thing that neither Bush nor Blair will be back after their current terms expire. Mind you, this is based upon my stated opinion that they (along with their political opponents) did try to use 9/11 for such gains, while sequentially declaring a single course of action (we are after bin Laden, bin Laden is in Afghanistan) and almost entirely pulling back from it (reduction of troops strength, cessation of pursuits when intelligence placed bin Laden inside the net). That is counterproductive, so having the leaders gone will prevent at least their repeating that mistake. I cannot guarantee others will not do things that will be at least as bad, but since this blog does not pre-date the Bush presidency, I haven't much in the way of current events to deal with for Clinton or Washington. The fourth sentence suggests that perhaps this event will sober up the people who have to make decisions and help guide them to a moreproductive course. The final sentence is my sincere and historically-based fear that such a sobering up is not on the horizon. Under any administration within sight.
"Regime change," according to White House press releases that directly quote Bush, is a term that was used by Bush in 2002. For reading about this, I recommend the United Nations charter, to which the United Nations is a signator. The relevant portion is Article 2(4). Furthermore, all the bellyaching about the United Nations' refusal to use its declared right for military action in UN Resolution 1441, you should read it. It nowhere specifies any form of military incursion into Iraqi territory as a response to partial or complete failure to comply.
And all of this is far afield from the issue of the London bombing.
Your original post brutalized some of my core ideas. I think you rightly came under fire since you delivered the first blow. Anyone can read the original context and make up their minds, whether I distorted it.
The events amounted to political gain only because the left opposed it. They shouldn’t have. Their alternatives are unpalatable.
Bush and Blair won’t be back because we have rules. Their foreign policy is correct and their successors need to continue the course.
This course included Iraq. And even if it didn’t, it certainly did not rule it out.
I suppose you want to deal with Clinton to show your non-partisan credentials, when they shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter whether you’re centrist or left, your statements need to stand or fall regardless of political affiliation. If you’re a centrist you prove that you have a variety of ideas not that this particular one is correct. And we’re discussing foreign policy not your whole system of ideas.
As to Iraq, the regime change was the objective, not the justification. The justification was “ failing to abide by the terms of the 1991 cease-fire (by developing and possessing weapons of mass destruction and by refusing to cooperate with UN weapons inspections) and … supporting terrorism”, check out what the history books will say (http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0838511.html).
The United Nations refused give “explicit UN Security Council approval.” This doesn’t mean that they opposed it. If they opposed it they could have said so. Basically, they were silent on the issue, meaning they withheld judgment. You say that silence means no, I say that silence means silence.
Oh dear lord! Read the resolution. No one, and I mean NO ONE to whom I have spoken about this and who has defended the use of the resolution to me has ever read the damned resolution. I read it within a day of my hearing its being held up as even part of the jus bellum for this war. I think you will find that its content does not match the claims of those who used it. I don't object to war. I object to a war sold to the public on lies or distortions. This component of the case is a distortion, pure and simple.
Additionally, you have eliminated from your quote the other three explicitly stated administration justifications for war in Iraq, all voiced prior to the one you quoted, all rejected. Furthermore, the world is still waiting for any evidence of possession or development of WMD. The refusal to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors is justification for UN action, not unilateral action on the part of a nation with which Iraq had no direct agreement.
Simply put, Iraq had no agreement with the United States as part of the 1991 cease fire agreement. We had no jurisdiction, based upon that cease fire agreement and subsequent resolutions, in the situation. To claim otherwise may be convenient, but it is patently wrong.
While freeing the Iraqi people is noble, and I in no way wish to diminish or discount the possible long-term benefit of that endeavor—its outcome is, as yet, far from clear—it is cannot be used as a reason to cross the borders of a sovereign nation. Whether we like it or not, Saddam Hussein's Iraq enjoyed that status in the international political arena.
Regime change? We are lucky we weren't censured for using that. Say what you will about how it came out, only situational ethics has a prayer of justifying it, and I am a not one to stomach such an argument.
The connection to al-Qaeda is laughable. Four people in the span of a year or more passed through Iraq, so Iraq is complicit (worse, Hussein was said to be in contact with at least one, yet that has been refuted by our own intelligence agencies). We had all nineteen members of the teams that took over jets on 9/11. Does this make the U.S. complicit?
Not a one of the cases made for the war stands up. Evidence of al-Qaeda in Iraq exists. That same evidence shows that al-Qaeda set up shop there after the U.S. invasion in 2002. Oops.
On one more point, I am not interested in holding up any president as the avatar of my ideals. I never have been. The closest any president has ever come to expressing what I believe was a Republican, by the way. We can go back to Washington, if you like, but I think the issues at hand were a touch different. We can take it back to Carter with regard to Saddam Hussein, and that's about it, so you have Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush. I'd be happy to discuss the successes and failures of each administration with regard to Iraq, but this is not the place to do it. When something new or interesting happens in Iraq (this includes the grossly tragic), then I will probably put something here about it. Look at the words below the title of my blog for a reminder about why I put things here.
Others may judge me, though my traffic has dropped off lately. I need to get back to the good stuff. My new part-time job is providing me with some material.
I can imagine you rolling your eyes Mr. Goody Two Shoes.
You tell me to read the resolution as a substitute for your argument. Go read the resolution, say you, expecting me to guess what you’re thinking. Well I did and I see what you’re saying, but clarity is not one of your attributes.
Consider the argument that prevailed. The first Iraqi war was suspended with a cease-fire in which Iraq accepted UN terms. (SCR 687) Yes, it was a cease-fire between Iraq and UN, and not between Iraq and US (although the US was the key participant in the war and a beneficiary of the ceasefire). Also, keep in mind that it was a cease-fire agreement and not a peace treaty.
Iraq then breached the cease-fire, by not cooperating with weapons inspectors and by attempting to assassinate George Bush Sr., a terrorist act. The US responded militarily in 1993 and 1998, arguing that Iraq’s breach revived authority of SCR 678 to use “all necessary means.” All necessary means include war. If the UN disagreed with this reasoning it had 10 years to say so.
In fact not only did it not disagree, but in 1993 the UN secretary general consented:
“The raid yesterday [referring to the 1993 air strike], and the forces which carried out the raid, have received a mandate from the Security Council, according to resolution 678, and the cause of the raid was the violation by Iraq of resolution 687 concerning the ceasefire. So, as Secretary-General of the United Nations, I can say that this action was taken and conforms to the resolutions of the Security Council and conforms to the Charter of the United Nations”
At the very least, after having acquiesced to the British/American interpretation for 10 years, the UN should be barred from contradicting itself.
In 2002 the UN declared Iraq in material breach of the cease-fire, expressly choosing the word “consider” instead of “decide” in “… must consider the matter before any action is taken.” (SCR 1441) Since the UN deliberately chose this wording, “consider” has only one interpretation: to think carefully. The UN gave Iraqi defiance and Allied military buildup ample consideration, and their response was silence. Given previous practice, the British/American interpretation stands. Silence means that the UN withheld judgment until after the action, as had become custom. The second Iraq war followed.
Look up jurisdiction. We didn’t try Iraq, we went to war with it. The UN had jurisdiction over Iraq on questions of war and peace. Now Saddam will be tried in Iraq, which absolutely has personal jurisdiction over him (as he is a citizen of Iraq and the crimes were committed there) for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and interestingly under Iraqi law for use or armed forces of Iraq against an Arab country, i.e. Kuwait, and other crimes.
Everything else is philosophical and political padding, though not irrelevant. There are reasons, objectives, hopes…
“I need to get back to the good stuff…” -->
Giving up Mr. Purvis? >;->
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