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The United States: September 11 and the Washington Standoff |
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Saturday, 12 May 2007 |
I must once again been very naïve. I thought that my last posting to this blog on the 3rd global war would be my last word on the subject, but this war is so serious and multifaceted it compelled me to come back today with this follow up. I am concentrating on America's involvement in it and for the following reasons: The United States is Al-Qaeda's most powerful opponent, defeating it will remove a huge obstacle in the road to realizing their dream. Also because of its US leader's sloppiness in managing their role in it, look at how they are conducting their presence in Iraq. Iraq is a very important theater in the current war, but the American's conduct of it has been full of terrible blunders and colossal mistakes. Apparently the American's don’t understand that loosing it is tantamount to loosing their country's prestige and position in world affairs as number one. The Americans have until very recently been living an illusion, they have always imagined that their vast continent and the two huge expanses of water which surround it would to the end of the world provide them with the safety and security they need in our harsh and unprincipled world. The Americans needed a big jolt to waken them to its realities, enter Osama bin Laden.
September 11 was more than a jolt it was the official declaration of war by the Al-Qaeda on the United States. By 1998 Al-Qaeda gained a religious edict [fatwa] to start their campaign in earnest, they have selected the United States as the first target for very simple reasons, the United States is their richest and most powerful opponent defeating it would be an enormous advantage in the quest for their struggle to establish their new Khalifate. Al-Qaeda have been planning their attacks years in advance, knowing that their struggle would take a very long time, they inserted sleeping cells, did reconnaissance and tried to measure their adversary by small scale and sometimes not very small scale attacks here and there like those I described in my previous update and those they perpetrated on August 7, 1998 against the two American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya which resulted in a terrible carnage and great loss of life. Those and the others were the early skirmishes and attempts at measuring the strengths and weaknesses of the Americans and then there was the real tour de force , it was 9:03 AM, September 11, 2001 and the world was suddenly a very different place, the post September 11 world is a totally different world, everything is different.
America's response to the threats of the new war and its response to its early skirmishes were halfhearted and amateurish at best. The US have underestimated the dedication and power of their enemy a situation which dates back to the Reagan administration which did not retaliate for the murder of the 278 marines who lost their lives as a result of the suicidal attack against their barracks in Beirut in 1982. The senior bush who did retaliate after the blowing of Pan AM flight 103 over Lockerbie/Scotland in which 259 man woman and child died, and the Clinton administration who did not act sufficiently forcefully against a number of threats being so badly embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal or the current Bush who is said to have paid less than the necessary attention in spite of frequent warnings about an impending attack against the homeland itself. The other even more important thing in this regard is that the Americans were and are still unable to agree that the threats they are exposed to are real and require the sacrifices they are being asked. No country in history has been able to weather the ravages of a brutal war like the one they are facing now when they were as badly divided and their societies are as polarized as is America now, witness the ongoing quarrel between the Bush administration and the Congress, but this is for a bit later.
After an initial short period of confusion and indecision which followed the three pronged attacks by the Al-Qaeda on the trade center, the Pentagon and the aborted attack on the White House. The Bush administration decided that they were going to retaliate and retaliate very forcefully with the intent of destroying its leadership and its organization. For the last few years Al-Qaeda was headquartered in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants were In Kabul so following civilized etiquette the Americans asked the Taliban authorities to hand over the culprit, but Mullah Omar refused to deliver his friend. The Talibans themselves were known to have committed a lot of atrocities, had turned their country into a middle ages like tyranny, the American went after them with some of their military and intelligence assets and with the help of some local militia and were able within a very short time to send them fleeing Kabul and Mullah Omar and his government were part of history. But, there was no bin Laden, he has also himself fled to Tora Bora the cave complex situated in the mountains of eastern Afghanstan, were he was said to have taken sanctuary with his high command. A long campaign of bombardment of the Tora Bora caves failed to dislodge the fugitives and Osama bin Laden is still free, but probably seriously ill with renal failure.
The Bush administration after their limited success in Afghanistan turned their cross hairs on Saddam Hussein. They have had enough of him, he was frequently the number one topic in the deliberations of George Bush's kitchen cabinet from the earliest days in the White House, the question was never the why but the when. September 11 gave the Bush administration an excellent pretext to remove Saddam, he was accused of harboring Al-Qaeda operatives and providing them with sanctuary, training and money, he was also presiding over a terrible regime which has turned Iraq into a huge prison, its people impoverished deprived and murdered sometimes using WMDs, Saddam has also threatened and invaded his neighbors, etc. The Bush's administration decided to go to Iraq, and went after a short very brilliant military operation which succeeded in twenty days to topple Saddam and dismantle his regime. The toppling of Saddam was followed by a short period of joy and hilarity both in Iraq and in Washington, but that was not to last of everything and very soon the situation went terribly wrong. The liberation turned into an occupation, the Americans crowned an ex ambassador to govern Iraq, Paul Bremer.
Bremer had no experience in the very complex affairs of this part of the world, or any knowledge about nation building his only claim to the job was a short stint in the counter terrorism office in the State Department sometime ago. Bremer had full authority, he would answer to the President and the Secretary of Defense only, he ran the place in an imperial way and he made some truly colossal mistakes, he remained on the job for one year only and went back to America. Bremer's tenure laid the ground for the misery and destruction which followed. He was followed by succession of Ambassadors who were not much better than Bremer and the situation in Iraq turned into the mess we are in now which is mostly blamed on the Bush administration and resulted in a gradual deterioration of the President's credibility and his job approval which laid the ground for the huge defeat the Republicans suffered during the last midterm elections and brought back the Democrats to the pinnacle of power in Washington.
When civilized societies are in the grips of very serious crises which threaten their very existence decent and honorable people rise above their differences, their petty quarrels and their personal ambitions and join in a collective effort to try and ride out their troubles and get through their crises. The United States is going through a very serious crisis as a result of their unfortunate adventure in Iraq. There has been a lot of blunders and mistakes but this is not the time to go on quarreling and frantically pursuing personal ambitions. The Americans people should unite and think carefully and rationally about their troubles, their politicians should stop wrangling and jockeying for position, Americans should join in a genuine effort to find an honorable and a decent exit from this quagmire. The current situation is very serious and threatens the safety and prosperity of the United States and its people and that of the Iraqis. In this dilemma one thing is urgently needed, an end, a swift end to the Washington standoff.
Najeeb Hanoudi
Friday, May 11, 2007
Amman/Jordan
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