DETROIT -- George W. Bush is soft on terrorism and his actions and failures to act have strengthened al-Qaeda and made the world a more dangerous place, and our nation more vulnerable and less secure.
While most of the media gushed over George W.'s surprise Thanksgiving visit to the troops in Iraq and the folksy made-for-campaigning video and photo opportunities, a tragic and more substantive story was emerging. November was the deadliest month in Iraq since the war began.
The official death count for U.S. troops was 81, exceeding March (65) and April (73), when American and British forces launched the invasion and Saddam got out of Dodge.
The frequency of guerrilla attacks and their sophistication and coordination make for a deadly environment, not just for the military, but also for civilians and contractors attempting to get the nation back to some semblance of normalcy.
The extraordinary security and secrecy shrouding the president's visit underscores just how dangerous and unsettled the situation is there.
The Bush crowd often likes to compare the occupation of Iraq to the post-World War II situations in Japan and Germany, and point to "swifter progress" in the present reconstruction efforts.
The Allies never had any trouble landing planes in Berlin or Tokyo within days of the end of the war.
When do you suppose the Baghdad airport will ever reopen?
When will people have essential services and jobs again?
When will the Iraqis run their own government?
During his brief visit, the president did have a little chat with members of the American-appointed Iraq Governing Council. Even our hand-picked people are upset with the timetable and process for transferring power, and they are important in selling the plan to the people.
The most powerful religious leader in Iraq wants direct elections and he has this strange notion that the Iraqi people, not the Pentagon, should decide what kind of government they will have.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is suspicious of the American plan to hold indirect, caucus-style elections. He fears that might reduce the representation of the Shiite Muslims, who just happen to account for 60 percent of the Iraqi population.
The ayatollah also wants the new Iraqi government to have greater emphasis "on the role of Islam and the identity of the Muslim people."
Now, that should not be a surprise, but the Bush nation-builders are troubled by this development and caught in a bind.
They prefer a Western-style government, with broad religious rights for all, free speech, women's rights and, most of all, a regime friendly to U.S. business interests, especially oil. Many Shiites, however, prefer a nation built on the pillars of Islamic law, more similar to neighboring Iran than to a secular Muslim state like Turkey.
The U.S. exit strategy calls for a June 30 deadline for ending the American military occupation authority, but that might be difficult to achieve, given the delicate issues involved. Rushing the process could result in more internal chaos, but delaying it means even more hostility toward the occupation forces. Colonialism is a messy thing, a terrible burden.
After the president's visit, Abu Sara, a Baghdad restaurant owner, told a Filipino news service that more Iraqis are turning against U.S. forces.
"We welcome Bush as we welcome any guest who comes peacefully," he said. "But we want to draw attention to the fact that there is no security, no jobs and no services well into the American occupation of Iraq. If the situation continues, Iraqis will use everything they have to throw Americans out, including stones."
Summer in Iraq was hell. Winter could be worse.
To insist, as Bush does, that Iraq is the central battleground in the war on terror grows more absurd every day.
Richard Clarke, who was a senior White House antiterrorism expert for George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, recently told Knight-Ridder news service, "Fighting Iraq had little to do with fighting the war on terror until we made it so."
Over in Afghanistan, the situation is getting worse, as the Taliban is showing signs of resurgence, and war lords, fueled with opium profits, dominate the countryside, where murder is the primary instrument of public policy. Afghanistan has never been truly pacified and the shift of limited resources to Iraq made matters worse.
The United Nations is pulling out relief programs in southeastern Afghanistan because of the unchecked violence.
Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni offered a grim assessment to "Newsweek" magazine.
"We're going to have to refight Enduring Freedom because we didn't finish the job," the former head of the U.S. Central Command lamented.
U.S. military special operations forces, spy satellites for tracking al-Qaeda, drone aircraft, intelligence resources and the few U.S. experts on Islam were diverted from the unfinished job in Afghanistan to the imperial adventure in Iraq.
Knight-Ridder reports one U.S. official estimates half of the special operations and intelligence resources focused on al-Qaeda were redirected to Iraq. We shifted the focus from the people who produced and exported the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to Saddam Hussein, a murderous despot for sure, but not someone with the means or will to export violence or pose any threat to American security. That is a grievous mistake.
The al-Qaeda-inspired attacks in Turkey and Saudi Arabia show our occupation in Iraq has done nothing to stop that terror, and the longer we are bogged down there, the greater the threat that such terrorism will move to other parts of the region. The war in Iraq and the occupation are a serious distraction from our real threat -- Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda killers.
The radical Islamic schools where a new generation of terrorists is indoctrinated are flourishing in Afghanistan, Pakistan and throughout southeastern Asia. The Bush administration has done little in this battle, which is essentially psychological warfare.
The madrassas serve as little hate-academies in areas where it's impossible for young boys to find any other form of education.
The Bush crowd spends billions hunting for nonexistent weapons in Iraq and looking for Saddam, while Osama bin Laden spends next to nothing winning over more recruits for his brand of terrorism -- the kind that strikes at America.
The wellspring for this violence and religious hatred, of course, can be found in Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia's official state religious doctrine, sanctioned by the royal family, the House of Saud. After the car-bombing at a foreign workers' housing compound in Riyadh, the government vowed to crack down on al-Qaeda sympathizers.
But Mansour al-Nogaidan, a Saudi columnist, says his government is missing the real target.
In a New York Times op-ed piece, he wrote, "The real problem is that Saudi Arabia is bogged down by deep-rooted Islamic extremism in most schools and mosques, which have become breeding grounds for terrorists. We cannot solve the terrorism problem as long as it is endemic to our educational and religious institutions."
Now that takes guts, and al-Nogaidan is already in trouble with the Saudi religious police, the Sahafa. He's been sentenced to get 75 lashes on his back for earlier articles calling for freedom of speech and criticizing Wahhabism.
This is where George W. Bush is squishy-soft on terrorism. He would never say what the courageous al-Nogaidan has, because he doesn't want to offend his pals in the Saudi royal family.
The president has never attacked the perverse philosophy that flows from Saudi Arabia and buttresses terrorism around the world. Saudi money was behind the Sept. 11 attacks and is surely funding more.
George W. knows if he denounced the Saudis, and they should be denounced, he'd get a tongue-lashing from his daddy, with Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., on the same conference call.
Bush will use harsh language to condemn terrorism anywhere except in its most poisonous well, Saudi Arabia, where Osama bin Laden got his first thirst for terror.
Al-Nogaidan was once a Wahhabi extremist himself and he saw the religious hate indoctrinated in several Saudi generations. He denounced the imams around Saudi Arabia who spent this recent Ramadan preaching hate against Christians and Jews, liberals, advocates of women's rights and secularists, but never uttered a critical word against the people responsible for the attacks in Riyadh and the killing of innocent children.
"The reason, I believe, is that these religious leaders sympathize with the criminals rather than the victims. I cannot but wonder at our officials and our pundits who continue to claim that Saudi society loves other nations and wished them peace, when state-sponsored preachers in some of our largest mosques continue to curse and call for the destruction of all non-Muslims," al-Nogaidan valiantly writes.
The Republican Party is sponsoring a TV ad on Bush's behalf in Iowa, where the Democrats running for president are slugging it out. In a despicable, mendacious manner, the ad suggests that the president's critics are supporters of terrorists. Flashed on the TV screen is the message: "Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists."
Democratic presidential hopeful Gen. Wesley Clark quickly counter-punched the GOP's slur ad, tagging George W. right on his glass jaw.
"I'm not critical of President Bush because he's attacking terrorists," Clark said. "I'm critical of President Bush because he's not attacking terrorists."
Removing Saddam Hussein from power did nothing to quell al-Qaeda and diverts our resources and attention from that terrible threat.
Afghanistan and other bin Laden playgrounds continue to breed and train terrorists. The Saudi government still refuses to take on the hate-spewing clerics and tackle reform.
George W. Bush refuses to criticize his Saudi cronies and has never publicly spoken the term Wahhabism, let alone used it in a sentence along with the word terror.
The Bush administration is doing everything possible to delay, thwart and scuttle the work of the independent commission investigating the intelligence failures in the Sept. 11 attacks and how such terror can be prevented in the future.
Max Cleland, former Democratic senator from Georgia and a member of the commission, says the president should be "ashamed" of the failure to cooperate and calls the White House stonewalling "Nixonian."
Could it be that George W. Bush fears the political embarrassment of evidence emerging showing that intelligence reports of bin Laden's planned attacks were ignored? Better to keep this stuff buried until long after the election.
Our ports, chemical plants and much of our domestic infrastructure require billions of dollars for security investment to protect them from terrorist attacks. While the president offers little of the people's money for that, our national treasury is raided for tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.
Somebody ought to create a political ad that proclaims this truth: "George W. Bush is soft on terrorism."
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | December 2 2003 |