A Sad Reminder That Some Things Stayed Changed

"…that the world may build on what it knows instead of what it thinks it knows."
-Apsley Cherry-Garrard

Slate just finished its four part piece on why the USA PATRIOT ACT is scary. Here are links to part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4. You should at least read part 4, which includes a handy summary.

Also, Bush is asking for 87 billion dollars to rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq. Pre-Sept. 11, Bush derided that sort of nation-building as a fru-fru liberal notion ranking up their with helping poor people. (Let's also note that the adminstration was early on claiming the war and reconstruction would cost around 50-60 billion and we'd be out of there in six months and on top of the money, we now expect 110,000 troops to be there this time next year)

Of course, on another front, here's something that did change and then quickly changed back, but now actually may be getting worse: international relations. The man was handed a blank check and the first thing he does is overdraw.

I'm not sure that metaphor lived up to its expectations, but if you're really wondering where all the warm and fuzzies went after 9/11 went, they got traded for political currency:

"The Times also notices that Bush, in just 23 words, repeated and linked two of the sketchiest pre-war claims about Iraq. "The terrorists have lost a sponsor in Iraq," the president said. "And no terrorist networks will ever gain weapons of mass destruction from Saddam Hussein's regime.""

"As everybody pauses for a moment and ponders the second anniversary of 9/11, the WP notices that President Bush has been extra responsible in making sure the attacks aren't forgotten: In the past six weeks, says the Post, Bush has cited Sept. 11 while arguing for his positions on energy policies, tax cuts, campaign finance, unemployment, the deficit, and, of course, Iraq."

Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons, it posed no plausible threat to the US, and had no credible connections to Al-Qaeda. So what reasons for war are we left with? Iraq ignored UN resolutions, he was a bad person, and we had to show "Them" that we were tough. I'll deal with the least irritating last.

As far as Saddam Hussein's tyranny went, that's pretty standard for a lot of countries in the Middle East and otherwise. If ours is a humanitarian concern, why balk at going into Liberia? Why not invade Syria or Saudi Arabia? It makes Bush's concern for the Iraqi people disingenuous to say the least.

Next is the notion that terrorists attack us because they view the US as weak, so invading Iraq proves we're strong. If rolling through Afghanistan in a couple of hours didn't convince them, I doubt blowing up another country will. Besides which, the terrorists (all of them, everywhere) are usually the first to admit that their targets are stronger than they are. That's why Al Qaeda hijacked civilian airplanes to ram into civilian buildings instead of marching up straight up Pennsylvania Avenue and taking the White House. That's why Israeli Sbarro's get blown up, and nail-filled grenades are left on playgrounds, hostages are taken at Russian opera houses and tourists are kidnapped in Columbia. Of course, Al Qaeda in particular, has plenty of reasons for hating the US (illegitimate though they may be, and nothing just justifies the attacks on 9/11, obviously), for instance the way the US used Afghanistan as a proxy to fight the Russians in the 80's, and left the Afghans feeling abandoned, or how the Saudis rejected AQ's help in favor of US intervention in the first Gulf War, or how continued American presence in Saudi Arabia kept Bin Laden's ire high, or how muslim fanatics in general see the US as an immoral country founded by an "enemy religion?" So are we scaring them straight?

"The LAT's lead, in something it doesn't emphasize, mentions that investigators trying to track AQ in the U.S. are particularly concerned since they've seen "many indications" that the war in Iraq has made jihadists "more intent than ever" on attacking targets on U.S. soil. "

Of course, I guess the best we could have hoped for, is for the other arms of the "Axis of Evil" to take notice and behave. To quote the eight ball "Outlook not so good. North Korea, with it's actual possession of nuclear weapons (not imaginary!), not to mention its proximity to having a means of actually deliver them to the continental US, should probably be a priority, which by the way, was known prior to the invasion of Iraq.

Finally, on the point of enforcing UN resolutions, even the UN didn't want to enforce its own resolutions, even if they were conditions of ending the war. Keep in mind, war started because Iraq invaded another country, and hasn't made any rumblings in that direction. So over a decade later, those ignored conditions don't really seem a terribly compelling justification for going back to war. If the US doesn't the UN to look like a joke, stop laughing at it.

Here's some further reading: On Iraq misconceptions, and on anonymous sources, which the Bush Administration seems to employ frequently, on money (you should definitely read this one, and on another lovely little deception by the administration: the EPA's premature reassurances that pollution from the World Trade Center was harmless.

Do you feel much safer?