Conservatives and the War on Terror

As it is September 11, it is time to look back and evaluate where we are in the war on terror and see what can be done to make America and its allies safer (yes the US still has allies though they are not in a very friendly mood at the moment).

It is undeniable that when Bush 43 came into office in January 2001, terrorism was not a high priority. The economy loomed large and Bush was intent on using tax cuts to stimulate the economy. There was a threat from the proliferation of nuclear weapons (especially North Korea and Pakistan) and Bush resurrected the Strategic Defense initiative to build an anti-missile defense system to protect the US from these rogue nations.

This seemed very reasonable. He was implementing the plan that he ran on. Bush said that the US should have a more humble foreign policy, avoid getting too involved in world matters not directly affecting us, and not engage in nation building. These things, for the most part, reflected the public mood of the nation.

However, among those in the know, there was an urgency that was being ignored. In October 2000, the USS Cole was attacked by suicide bombers in Yemen. Seventeen sailors were killed. It was suspected that this was the work of Al Qaeda, the group also responsible for the bombing of two US embassies in Africa in 1998. The loss of American life was small, though the loss of local life was significant.

The Clinton administration's response to the 1998 bombings was to bomb terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a chemical factory in Sudan. This response was criticized by the Republicans on two fronts: First, why use a $1 million missile to hit a $10 tent? Second, the Clinton administration used dubious intelligence to hit the chemical factory and only served to further alienate the rest of the world. The factory, Republicans claimed, only made aspirin. Clinton countered it was funded by Al Qaeda and sold product to Iraq. There was also rumbling that this was a "Wag the Dog" move--Clinton was creating a military threat to turn attention from the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

There had been no response to the Cole bombing as of the time Clinton left office. Clinton was being very careful to make sure they knew who did it, though it was obvious to most of the national security staff that it was Al Qaeda. Without evidence Clinton was not prepared to move and commit the incoming president to a course of action. Likewise at the same time, he had his Counter-Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, devise a plan to go after Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. That plan was delivered to Clinton on December 20, 2000. Again implementation was withheld as Clinton did not want to commit Bush to a course of action, and the plans were far reaching.

So, as Bush took office his concerns were the economy, rogue nations with nuclear weapons, entangling treaties (Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming, the International Criminal Court), and of course his first official act: cutting off US funding to non-governmental organizations that gave abortion counseling.

At this time only two groups were concerned about what was going on in Afghanistan: career national security staff (Richard Clark, Rand Beers, George Tenet), and women's magazines. Whoa, women's magazines? Yes, women's magazines. They were focusing on Afghanistan because the Taliban were severely limiting women's rights. Fundamentalist Islam took over. Women could not go out alone, could not go to school, could not have jobs, and were being subject to "female circumcision." You heard more about the Taliban on Oprah and in Glamour than on CNN or from the White House (except some praise for the Taliban for reducing the production of poppies--can't forget the "war on drugs").

During the summer of 2001, the CIA and FBI were going nuts looking for two suspected Al Qaeda members who had gotten into the country. The "chatter" being picked up among known terrorists was becoming intense. While Clarke and Tenant were at "battle stations" there still hadn't been a principals meeting on the issue of terrorism; that is a meeting between cabinet level officials. In fact, Clark as terrorism Czar had been "demoted" to a deputies position. Under Clinton the terrorism Czar had access to the principals and the President.

On September 11, 2001 Richard Clarke was not supposed to be anywhere further than 5 minutes from the White House. President Bush was in Tampa meeting with elementary school children. When the Clarke got the call that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, he rushed back to the White House knowing that the US had been attacked by Al Qaeda. When Andy Card told President Bush the same thing, he continued to read the intriguing story of My Pet Goat. Various reasons have been given: it could have been an accident, no one imagined that terrorists would use airplanes in this manner, it wasn't clear it was a crisis until the second plane hit. President Bush would have known right away it was Al Qaeda if he had bothered to read his Presidential Daily Briefs (including the one in August titled "Al Qaeda determined to Strike US" which included the belief that they would try to hijack aircraft).

Whether or not vigilance by the President would have prevented the 9/11 attacks is unknown. However, what is known is his response. As we sit here 3 years after the attacks the question is "Are we safer today then we were on September 10, 2001?"

Unfortunately, the answer is "probably not". Turns out we knew who the 9/11 hijackers were, were able to trace their movements in this country, had prevented others from entering this country, and came within a search warrant of blowing open he plot. Problem was, the structure of the intelligence community, its disjointed and political nature, prevented the people in the know from "connecting the dots." So, how do we respond to this attack on the US and how do we prevent it in the future?

Now, I have some food for thought: Conservative Values:
1. Fiscal Responsibility (no deficits)
2. A "humble" foreign policy
3. Less Government More Freedom

George Bush's record
1. Largest deficit ever
2. Reckless, arrogant foreign policy
3. More government, less freedom

The point of this exercise is not to bash Republicans but to show that today's Republicans are not conservatives. They have abandoned conservative values. The largest problem is their focus on larger government, more overbearing government that restricts American liberties. This is completely unacceptable. And this has made us less safe.

I will not dwell on the deficits, but there is one important fact: The US didn't survive the September 11th attacks because it has the best armed forces in the world (though we do). It survived because we have the strongest economy in the world. This is the same reason we won World War II. We are able to keep producing under the worst of circumstances. Did 9/11 hurt the economy? Yes. But it didn't devastate it; it didn't stop Americans from doing what they do. In fact, President Bush realized this when he said Americans should go out and spend because a vital economy is vital to national security. So why then has Bush abandoned fiscal conservatism, strangely enough as espoused by President Clinton? He let budgets get out of control. It isn't just the Iraq war and the "Clinton Recession" that did it. It was ill advised tax cuts and poor fiscal policy. So, Bush is not a fiscal conservative.

A more humble foreign policy. Well, Republicans argue, we can't be humble in the face of the terrorist threat. Unfortunately, they misinterpret humble. Humble doesn't mean meek. It means respectful. We must respect our allies. There wasn't a single ally that objected to our going after the Taliban in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Afghan campaign was bungled. Instead of freeing the whole country from the Taliban and imposing the rule of law we secured Taliban strongholds of Kabul and Kandahar. Instead of having thousands of US troops eliminating the last remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Tora Bora, we relied on Afghans who really didn't "have a dog in this fight." Thus, Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden escaped into a lawless region of Pakistan to be protected by their sympathetic tribesman.

To further the war on terror, Bush decided to go against Iraq. Again, his fundamental misunderstanding of the perpetrators of terrorism hindered his ability to act. On the day of the attacks he asked Clarke what part Iraq had in this. "No part" Clarke responded. The president wanted it looked into anyway. Thus began the Iraqi misadventure. Again, we could have world support for the Iraq war if it had been handled properly politically and militarily. Prior to the war Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the UN to make the case for war. This was his chance to blind side the world with the evidence just as Adlai Stevenson had done during the Cuban missile crisis. The Russians denied there were missiles and we showed the pictures. Unfortunately, this time we had no pictures and it turns our they had no missiles. I was a supporter of the war until that point. However, the Bush administration pushed forward with the war without any support (except Britain). Not humble. Not even bold. Just arrogant.

Less Government. More Freedom. So how do we fight the terrorists here at home. I have an idea. Let's give up liberty for security. But how do we square that with our Conservative tenet of less government, more freedom. We don't have to. We are not conservatives, we are new Republicans. We change the Constitution for our own short term political gain, so what's the big deal to give up some rights? Well, there's no point.

9/11 didn't happen because of the imaginary wall between terrorist and criminal investigations at the Department of Justice. Or because the FBI couldn't look at what books people were buying or checking out of the library. In fact, we knew who the terrorists were as soon as we looked at the passenger manifests. We had pictures of them entering the airports; records of them entering the country and reports of them attending Al Qaeda meetings. So what went wrong.

1. The FBI didn't process a report by a special agent in Phoenix that wanted to look into Middle Eastern men taking flying lessons.
2. The FBI wouldn't ask for a search warrant for a Middle Eastern man arrested after he wanted to take flying lessons, but not learn how to land or takeoff (Zacharious Moussaoui).
3. The CIA, the FBI and Customs couldn't seem to coordinate their terror watch lists.
4. Information about those attending the Al Qaeda meeting in Indonesia wasn't passed on to the FBI and Customs.
5. An FBI informant in San Diego didn't realize he had two of the terrorists living in his house.

So, which of the above would the USA Patriot Act have helped. None. It has helped nail some strip club owners in Las Vegas.

So where are we on September 11, 2004. We are short 1,005 soldiers killed in Iraq and have created a new group of terrorist leaders. New York is on Orange Alert. Dick Cheney has come out of his undisclosed location to let us know a vote for John Kerry is a signal to terrorists to attack with impugnity. Osama and Mullah Omar are still around. Al Qaeda is stronger than ever. The Arab Street is against us. Terrorism is rampant in Iraq and Russia. North Korea has nuclear weapons (yet we are moving 12,000 out of 34,000 troops off of the Korean peninsula). Iran is working on getting nuclear weapons. Iran is funding terrorists in Lebanon, West Bank, and Gaza, as well as letting Al Qaeda traverse its frontier without question.

The good news: Libya has given up its weapons of mass destruction program after two years of negotiations with the British and has paid billions for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland; though there is a question about whether the bombing was actually the work of Iran.

Have you noticed a theme? (hint: IRAN).

President Bush is not a conservative nor has done anything to fight the war against Al Qaeda. On this September 11, that seems pretty stupid.