I have been thinking about the invasion of Afghanistan and have concluded that it was a bad idea that Dubya chose only because he didn't want to admit that his administration was asleep at its post prior to 9/11.
Let me provide a timeline of events. By 9/13, the US had determined that bin Laden was the "prime suspect" for the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban's immediate response was that it believed that bin Laden lacked the capability in terms of communications and resources to organize attacks of the magnitude seen in the U.S and that if the US provided evidence of bin Laden's guilt, that they would consider extraditing him. On 9/16, bin Laden denied any responisiblity for the attack. On 9/17, the President made his famous announcement that he wanted bin Laden "Dead or Alive". On 9/18, the Taliban convened a meeting of 600 senior clerics to discuss turning over the bin Laden. On 9/20 in an address to a joint session of Congress, Dubya changed the rhetoric to include the Taliban as a part of the enemy. He gave the Taliban a huge list of demands that he knew the Taliban couldn't agree to. Then he said,
These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. The Taliban must act, and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate.
The administration continued to stonewall on evidence that bin Laden was responsible. On 9/23, Colin Powell went on the
Sunday press shows and said:
We are hard at work bringing all the information together, intelligence information, law enforcement information. And I think in the near future we will be able to put out a paper, a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking him to this attack
But the next day,
Dubya shot Powell down:
Q Ari, yesterday Secretary Powell was very precise that he was going to put out a report on what we had on bin Laden that could be reported, and not classified. Today, the President shot him down -- and he's been shot down many, many times by the administration -- you seem to be operating -- he also retreated a question of putting out a report. No, I'm wrong?
MR. FLEISCHER: No, I think that there was just a misinterpretation of the exact words the Secretary used on the Sunday shows. And the Secretary talked about that in a period of time -- I think his word was "soon" -- there would be some type of document that could be made available. As you heard the Secretary say today, he said "as we are able," as it unclassifies.
Having stopped all discussions of evidence, the Administration offered Americans two choices.
Door #1 - we can hope that the Taliban hand over their friend bin Laden or
Door #2 - we can go over to Afghanistan, crush al Qaeda ourselves and kick the ass of a brutal, repressive, arbitrary, terrorist-harboring government. I admit that I agreed with Door #2 because I thought we would capture all of the leadership of al Qaeda and then we were going to establish a new government that would be an example of what the West can do for a country, a "shining city on the hill" in a region were terrorists breed like mosquitos. Sadly, what the administration really picked was
the Box on the Floor - not capture bin Laden or many of the leaders of al Qaeda and replace the brutal, repressive taliban with brutal, repressive warlords. We now have an open-ended commitment to Afghanistan and are rightfully blamed for the misery there. The administration decided to try building the "shining city on the hill" down the street in Iraq.
So if we knew enough to be confident it was bin Laden and we were sharing that information with our allies, why weren't we willing to share the information with the world? Could it be because Dubya's administration didn't want to admit they had plenty of evidence that the attacks were coming before 9/11? One of the defences that the Taliban made for bin Laden was that there were no flight training schools in Afghanistan. I think the administration knew by 9/18 from the FBI that the hijackers had trained in the US. Why didn't it say so? The excuse Ari Fleischer gave was:
I can only remind you that there are some questions that, to find the answer to, reveal very valuable information about how the United States would get that information. And to reveal that, we would provide information to the al Queda organization, to Osama bin Laden, to any other enemies of this country, that they would love to have.
If we had release the evidence to the world, the Taliban might have turned bin Laden and all of the leadership of al Qaeda over to the US or the UN. Instead, we spent billions and lots of lives on a war and occupation that has not resulted in a better life for the people of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has performed more bombings since they have been kicked out of Afghanistan then before. And this is biggest success of Dubya's administration?