It was never the ISTs; it was always the ISM
What a bunch of silly gooses we are. We thought that the whole response to 9-11 and the other attacks both before and after the attacks on New York was to get the terrorists who were doing this. Bush told us he was going to get 'em, dead or alive.
But, as it is now emerging, that was never the plan, and the number of ways we have been lied to is just staggering. I suppose, if that had been the plan -- to get the guys what done us wrong -- they may have actually implemented it. There might have even been a mission accomplished by now.
After the attacks, it is fair to say the governments of the West had a bit of license to hunt down the killers and deal with them. But, under the guise of doing that, they have had something else in mind. Something that has never been openly debated in any hall of any congress. Something that is so broad, so challenging, so uncertain, so different to the ways things had been done in the past that you would think usual democratic principles would demand a debate and a specific democratically arrived at authority. It is the kind of major initiative that you think ought to emerge only after the people have been asked about it and given their approval.
What the Coalition of the Willing has had it in mind to do from the very beginning was to re-jig the very foundations of the ancient societies throughout the Middle East. The goal is to tear down all the halls of "oppression" wherever they might be and replace them with an American led "democratic" putsch. Presumeably, that would mean replacing all the Kings and Princeses and Emirates and Sultans and Mullahs and Ayatollas and other tribal leaders with duly constituted, freely and popularly elected peoples' representatives and institutions. Even, perhaps especially, the Saudis.
Because, they assert, only a democratic society can eliminate terrorism. (The corollary being, terrorism cannot exist in a democratic society -- so why are we having all these anti-democratic terror laws being enacted?)
Here it is, straight from the horse's (US Secretary of State Rice) mouth:
"Or we could take a bolder approach, which was to say that we had to go after the root causes of the kind of terrorism that was produced there, and that meant a different kind of Middle East [not Iraq, not Afghanistan, the whole bloody Middle East]. And there is no one who could have imagined a different kind of Middle East with Saddam Hussein still in power. I know it's difficult, but we have ahead of us the prospect, and I think the very good prospect of a foundation for a democratic and prosperous Iraq that can solve its differences by politics and compromise, that becomes an anchor for a Middle East that is changing.
"If you look at Lebanon and you look at the Palestinian territories and you look at what is going on in Egypt, this is a Middle East that is in transformation to something far better than we have experienced for the last 60 years when we thought that we could ignore democracy and get stability and, in fact, we got neither. So yes, it's long, and yes, it's hard, but if we quit now, we are not only going to condemn generations of people of the Middle East to despair, we are going to condemn generations of Americans to continued fear and insecurity....
But, as it is now emerging, that was never the plan, and the number of ways we have been lied to is just staggering. I suppose, if that had been the plan -- to get the guys what done us wrong -- they may have actually implemented it. There might have even been a mission accomplished by now.
After the attacks, it is fair to say the governments of the West had a bit of license to hunt down the killers and deal with them. But, under the guise of doing that, they have had something else in mind. Something that has never been openly debated in any hall of any congress. Something that is so broad, so challenging, so uncertain, so different to the ways things had been done in the past that you would think usual democratic principles would demand a debate and a specific democratically arrived at authority. It is the kind of major initiative that you think ought to emerge only after the people have been asked about it and given their approval.
What the Coalition of the Willing has had it in mind to do from the very beginning was to re-jig the very foundations of the ancient societies throughout the Middle East. The goal is to tear down all the halls of "oppression" wherever they might be and replace them with an American led "democratic" putsch. Presumeably, that would mean replacing all the Kings and Princeses and Emirates and Sultans and Mullahs and Ayatollas and other tribal leaders with duly constituted, freely and popularly elected peoples' representatives and institutions. Even, perhaps especially, the Saudis.
Because, they assert, only a democratic society can eliminate terrorism. (The corollary being, terrorism cannot exist in a democratic society -- so why are we having all these anti-democratic terror laws being enacted?)
Here it is, straight from the horse's (US Secretary of State Rice) mouth:
"But the fact of the matter is that when we were attacked on September 11, we had a choice to make. We could decide that the proximate cause was al-Qaeda and the people who flew those planes into buildings and, therefore, we would go after al-Qaeda and perhaps after the Taliban and then our work would be done and we would try to defend ourselves.
"Or we could take a bolder approach, which was to say that we had to go after the root causes of the kind of terrorism that was produced there, and that meant a different kind of Middle East [not Iraq, not Afghanistan, the whole bloody Middle East]. And there is no one who could have imagined a different kind of Middle East with Saddam Hussein still in power. I know it's difficult, but we have ahead of us the prospect, and I think the very good prospect of a foundation for a democratic and prosperous Iraq that can solve its differences by politics and compromise, that becomes an anchor for a Middle East that is changing.
"If you look at Lebanon and you look at the Palestinian territories and you look at what is going on in Egypt, this is a Middle East that is in transformation to something far better than we have experienced for the last 60 years when we thought that we could ignore democracy and get stability and, in fact, we got neither. So yes, it's long, and yes, it's hard, but if we quit now, we are not only going to condemn generations of people of the Middle East to despair, we are going to condemn generations of Americans to continued fear and insecurity....
"What we are focused on is getting the Syrian regime to change its behavior. The Syrian regime is out of step with what is going on in the region.... They are stirring up difficulties in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon, which is a problem for the Palestinian territories and the work that Mahmoud Abbas is trying to do in bringing a Palestinian state to bear. And, yes, they are permitting the use of Syrian territory for terrorists to cross Syrian territory. And by the way, in many cases they're coming through Damascus airport. This isn't crawling across the border as they do in Pakistan or Afghanistan. And so, yes, they're using--that territory is being used to kill innocent Iraqis, innocent men, women and children, because suicide bombers are coming through there.
So this is about Syrian behavior...."
So this is about Syrian behavior...."
For more on ists and isms, see http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/10/crusader-rabbit-and-other-hair-brained.html
Labels: Bush Doctrine, Favorite posts, MidEast, World power
posted by Guambat Stew at Thursday, October 20, 2005
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