What If?

What if the US had treated the 9/11 attacks as a law enforcement problem rather than a military problem? Despite how much Kerry was ridiculed in the 2004 campaign for suggesting that terrorism should be treated like a law enforcement issue, it certainly was unprecedented to do so. The first World Trade Center attack, back in 1993, was handled by law enforcement. Like 9/11, Islamic terrorists were responsible, but the culprits were arrested and tried and convicted in court, including the mastermind of the plan, Ramzi Yousef.

If we had never attacked Afghanistan, would the Bush administration been able to drum up enough support to invade Iraq? Would Osama bin Laden been able to escape capture and arrest in Tora Bora? Would he be on trial in a US court right now?

Which do you think would have made us safer: OBL in custody and on trial, or overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq? The intelligence supporting the idea that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was sketchy, at best, as was the evidence that Hussein and OBL had any connection.

The utterly predictable outcome of choosing to invade and occupy Iraq rather than pursue justice is that Iraq has devolved into civil war, and that our behavior in Iraq has generated even more anti-American hatred in the Middle East. We're approaching the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and what do we have to show for our efforts? One crazy guy (Mohammed Atta) convicted, even though everybody (including al Qaeda) knows he's nuts, thousands of US soldiers killed, tens of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis killed, and no functional government in either country. Now our proxy, Israel, is destroying Lebanon.

Three countries destroyed, in chaos and disarray; who's most likely to benefit from this situation? Who's most likely to gain more power in the region? Again, another utterly predictable outcome: Iran.

Would we be in such a mess had the FBI and the Department of Justice been in charge of our response, rather than the Pentagon? I'm no fan of John Ashcroft, but is it possible to be more incompetent than Donald Rumsfield?

Heckuva job, Bushie.

Fire

When will we (or Israel) ever learn that “just kill all the bad guys” doesn’t work as a military strategy against guerillas? Israel has been a country almost 60 years, and Israel has always reacted with disproportionate force, and they’ve never gotten rid of Hezbollah or Hamas or any other guerrilla organization yet.

A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Given that the Bush administration has been mostly silent regarding the outbreak of war in Lebanon, one can only assume that they approve of Israel’s reaction, and must believe that this time, for sure, the IDF will be able to wipe out Hezbollah.

Right now, there are at least three wildfires going on in the Middle East, none of which are under control: Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon. I feel like we’re watching a slow-moving disaster getting ready to explode; my fear is those uncontained wildfires will merge into a conflagration. I’m getting these uneasy reminders of 1914, and the assassination of an archduke.

I know the Bush administration wanted to change the dynamic of the Middle East, but they’re like little boys playing with fire. It never was under their control, even when they thought it was. And it takes a funny view of the “sanctity of life” to think it’s all right to destroy innocent people as “collateral damage.”

Snowflakes

President Bush wielded his veto power for the first time in his presidency, to stop stem cell research. He announced the veto surrounded by a collection of children known as “snowflakes”. Said children were “adopted” as frozen embryos, implanted in the adoptive mother’s uterus, and gestated. Bush chose these children to “remind us of what is lost when embryos are destroyed in the name of research.”

Meanwhile, in Iraq, 6000 real human beings died in the months of May and June.

I can’t help but look at this picture, and notice that all of the children and parents flanking Bush are white. Why are these children more important to Bush than the brown children of Iraq? Okay, so they’re Americans, he didn’t take an oath to protect and defend the world. Then why are these children more important than the black children of New Orleans? He couldn’t stop his vacation for them.

I don’t think the President is necessarily overtly racist. I think he just has no empathy for people who aren’t like him. He can’t imagine what it’s like to poor, or black, or a woman, and worse, doesn’t see why that would be a problem.