History’s repetitions have been increasingly sickening.
President Bush justified the U.S. invasion of Iraq on false pretenses,
declared the “mission accomplished” when the opposite was true, and the
occupation itself has morphed into an ever deeper quagmire. We saw all this
40 years ago in Vietnam.
In August, 2001, Bush was vacationing on his ranch in
Texas; his approval ratings were low and his Republican Party lost control of
the Senate after alienating maverick Senator James Jeffords. Then the chaos
and catastrophe of September 11th occurred, jolting Bush into action and
forever defining his turn at the helm of the world’s most powerful nation.
On Thursday, a similar jolt occurred. There was once
again a horrific and barbarous terrorist attack on innocent civilians. Bush,
while not technically on vacation, was enjoying himself at a world-class golf
resort in Scotland. His poll numbers were again at their nadir, with only 46%
of American approving of his job handling and 51% disapproving, according to
Gallop. Democrats in Congress have been able to stall Bush’s agenda on
everything from Social Security to John Bolton’s nomination as ambassador to
the United Nations.
Bush, who is forever linguistically challenged to put it
politely, actually churned out a potent and powerful sound bite responding to
the bombings in London: “On the one hand,” Bush said, “you have people
working to alleviate poverty and rid the world of the pandemic of AIDS and
ways to have a clean environment and, on the other hand, you have people
working to kill people. The contrast couldn't be clearer between the
intentions and the hearts of those who care deeply about human rights and
human liberty, and those who kill, those who've got such evil in their hearts
that they will take the lives of innocent folks. The war on terror goes
on.”
You have to give credit where credit is due and Bush
perfectly (or his speech writers at least) framed the issue and shaped the
debate for days to come. According to Bush, he and the other G-8 leaders were
going to accomplish unbelievable humanitarian goals while saving the
environment.
Never mind that Bush is adamantly opposed to any Western
effort to significantly reduce greenhouse gases. While it is laudable that
the G-8 conference was primed to cancel upwards of $40 billion in illegitimate
debt of some of the poorest African nations while lesser steps were taken on
AIDS, the whole summit agenda has now been shifted away from those crucial
issues and back to a post-September 11 focus on military might and fighting
fire with fire, even against those who never lit up in the first place.
The country was finally turning away from Bush’s scare
tactics and fear mongering. His recent speech from Fort Bragg captured the
smallest number of viewers of any prime-time speech in his Presidency.
Americans were finally waking up to Bush’s lies about weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq, about Iraq’s ties to Al-Qaeda and September 11, about
the ease of occupation, and about the necessity of cracking down on civil
liberties. A recent Zogby poll found that 42% of Americans favor impeachment
proceedings assuming Bush misled us into war, which should have been a
foregone conclusion months ago.
Now the salient fear is back. Bush has new evidence to
prop up his misguided policies to fight terrorists. The awful bombings in
London garnered an enormous media response, and rightly so, as it is the
unexpected that makes news and sells papers. And no one was truly ready for
this. Iraq, on the other hand, is old news. Fifty or more Iraqis, Americans,
and other foreigners die almost daily over there and that news is lucky if it
makes page 10, though most people probably skip over it anyway. Why read a
story that appears the same, day in and day out? The U.S. casualty count
slowly builds up, but incrementalism isn’t sensationalist; it isn’t
eye-catching; it isn’t great for a corporation’s bottom line. Americans’
expectations have shifted on Iraq from the unrealistic easy victory and quick
withdrawal to a protracted struggle far away, in a place most will never visit
nor would ever bother to fight in.
I would hope that the disgusting carnage in London would
serve as message to the G-8 that current terror-fighting policies have failed
– we just witnessed a repeat of a September 11th style intrusion on a free
society with devastating results. Iraq was a botched operation built on lies
resulting in a rallying call for terrorist recruiters. It also shifted focus
away from others dying every day due to selfish Western policies. Disease in
Africa, from malaria to AIDS, kills thousands every day, not to mention the
toll from famine. The world had just begun to take notice of a preventable
epidemic, but now failed war policies may be brought back to the forefront
with a newly fear-induced public wary to stand in the way.
Like the War of Drugs and the War on Poverty, the War on
Terrorism cannot be won, but we can do much better. We can reduce terrorist
attacks, dismantle terrorist cells, and create a climate of hope for the less
fortunate, which leads toward progress, instead of a climate of helplessness,
which leads towards violence. We need a policy that leads by example. We
need to establish consistent standards for human rights and human decency;
enlarge our diplomatic voice and power, not by alienating those who share our
values, but by including them; and secure all loose nuclear material from
former Soviet republics to North Korea.
We need to move towards energy independence by focusing
on conservation and alternative fuels, not drilling for a non-renewable
resource where we are at the mercy of foreign dictators. We need to move more
nimbly and effectively in shutting down financial flows to terrorist
organizations. We need to re-focus our attention on the original culprits of
September 11th, Islamic militants still hiding out in tribal regions between
Afghanistan and Pakistan. We need to do all this and we need to do a whole
lot more. All I know is that when something isn’t working, try something
else, because repeating your mistakes gets you nowhere. Let’s hope history’s
bad re-runs stop here.