I posted this in September to little comment. We were in a campaign and I guess it seemed irrelevant. Well, now we see the blueprint for the next four years and it not only is not pretty, it is very dangerous for our country. We need to fully understand the world situation we are in and how to deal with it.:
We are in a religious war. Ossama bin laden said after the 9 11 attacks " Now, will you turn the other cheek?" One could almost see the sneer on his face, It was a challenge with 2 edges. A challenge to our values and to our anger and shock. We needed to go after Bin Laden without question. In the process of attacking him we acted with neither true morality or true might. Of all the immoral and foolish things , we sent others to capture Bin Laden and his team, when we should have done the job ourselves. It was sleazy at the time and remains so. All the while, as if to draw our eyes from that failure, a breakdown of character, We prepare to attack Iraq. Saddam is a bad guy to be sure, but he actually did not attack us. It was a clear distraction from our first and still unfinished job of eliminating Ossama. It was an action build on lies and politics, it was immoral and bad for the United States. This war is being fought in a different time than earlier wars, and immoral behavior in a religious war does not win the fight. The ends do not justify the means.
We would not be fighting any wars now if Muslim leaders, even American Muslim leaders were able to stand up and say- clearly, loudly and with authority, that the actions of the 9-11 terrorists was morally wrong. That those actions against the United States was against Islam, which it is.. But that did not happen because of inherent contradictions and insecurities in the religion, which are in all religions, but which have not been worked out. Most importantly, it did not happen because the President of the United States did not ask for it, or set the groundwork to ask for it.
I find it difficult to understand the value of taking a country - Iraq- and making the citizens our enemies. The use of unlimited force against operatives such as Ossama and his team is a clear and clean message which almost anyone can understand. Creating a situation of total chaos where nothing works, and people who 2 years ago had a life are now afraid to say or do anything and live worse than one did 1000 years ago are the actions of thoughtless people. Is it any wonder the Americans are distrusted- perhaps hated. It has made an ideal spawning ground for further terrorist recruitment and activity.
The rationale is spreading democracy and liberty. Good goals. but how real?. John Adams, in 1776 said that the Declaration of Independence would have been very difficult for people to embrace, were it not for the fact that it was already jelling in the hearts and minds of the people over the previous decade. And then it was another 16 years before there was an election for our first President. (And this was already in our hearts and minds!)
We- as a government- think we can transform Iraq- or other countries- in a month or over the weekend. Iraq is not ready and we have lengthened the time it will take to be ready for democracy for a generation or more. The fundamental thinking, that raw power rather than a community of people can effect meaningful change is deeply flawed. Our problem now, is how to embrace the human community of our world, so we can have peace, prosperity and sometime democracy for all. Our job is many times more difficult and dangerous now than it was on September 12,2001.