Antiwar.com Blog

Thomas Schaller in the Gadflyer has been kind enough to put up a transcript of Richard Clarke’s interview by Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air program. Clarke distills his argument for why invading Iraq has increased the problem of terrorism into 3 major points.

1. First of all, it’s costing us $180 billion in the first two years, and may be even more than that. That money could have been used to reduce our vulnerabilities here at home. In the wake of the Madrid bombing of the trains recently, people have realized what’s been true all along, that our railroads in the United States – our subways, our commuter rails – are not protected. Well, many things in the United States are not protected. There’s a long list of vulnerabilities which we could reduce. It would cost money. We’re not spending that money reducing those vulnerabilities very much. There are some token efforts. There should have been an all-out national effort akin to the Apollo Project, or the Manhattan Project.

   But we didn’t do that. And in large part we didn’t do that because the money that would have been necessary is being spent on Iraq. So that’s the first thing: It’s costing us the alternative of reducing our vulnerabilities.

2. Second, actual military and intelligence assets that were in Afghanistan – looking for al Qaeda, looking for bin Laden – were removed and sent to Iraq. Now, in the last few weeks, they’ve been returned. But that’s two years too late. Two years during which al Qaeda has morphed into a hydra-headed organization with independent organizations and independent cells, and likely the group in Madrid. So we didn’t go after al Qaeda the way that we should have. And we didn’t secure Afghanistan.

   We went into Afghanistan in a very slow way after September 11th. A few special forces troops were put up north with the Northern Alliance to fight the Taliban. We did not send people into where we thought bin Laden was for almost two months – during which, of course, he escaped. And then, we only deployed 11,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

   Now let’s compare that. There are more police in Manhattan – not the city of New York, but just Manhattan – there are more police in Manhattan than the United States put troops into Afghanistan. And yet we were supposed to secure and stabilize the country so that never again would it be a base for terrorism. We were supposed to be draining the swamp.

   Well, we haven’t. And one of the reasons we haven’t is that we withheld forces that should have been going into Afghanistan. We withheld them for the war in Iraq.

3. The third way is that, al Qaeda had been saying, bin Laden had been saying, that the United States is the “new crusader,” the new westerner come to occupy an Arab country, an oil-rich Arab country. And we did exactly that. We did exactly what bin Laden said we would do: We invaded and occupied an oil-rich Arab country that had not been threatening us. And the sights on Arab television of American troops fighting in Iraq, and now occupying Iraq, have infuriated Arab opinion.

   The Pew Charitable Trust does opinion polling, very reliable opinion polling in countries such as Morocco and Jordan and Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan. Many of those countries – the government, at least – is our friend. We consider them allies, and we consider them moderates. And yet the opinion polls now show that up to 90 percent of people in those countries either hate the United States or have a very negative opinion of the United States. Osama bin Laden is a very popular figure in some of those countries. The most-often given name to new children in Pakistan after 9/11 was Osama.

   So, we played right into their hands by invading and occupying, without any provocation, a Muslim country, and at the very time when we should have been doing the opposite. We should have been embracing our Islamic friends and saying, “work with us to have a counterweight, an ideological counterweight to al Qaeda.”

   They won’t do that now with us, because many of these governments don’t want to be seen to be working too closely with us now in the Islamic world.

   We can’t just arrest and kill terrorists. Even Donald Rumsfeld figured that out. In his internal memo in the Pentagon, which leaked, he said it may be the case that we’re turning out new terrorists faster than we’re killing and arresting them. He’s right; we are. And we have to win the war for ideas. And we can’t do that so long as we are reviled by occupying a country like Iraq.

Of course, many of us have been trying to point these same things out since 9/11 and have been branded “America-hating peacenik Osama lovers” for our troubles by the War Party cheerleaders.

Thanks to Swopa at needlenose for the link.

Last night, President Bush made his presentation at the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association dinner, where he made some pretty funny jokes about looking for WMDs in the Oval Office, showing pictures of Rumsfeld looking under carpets.

Today, TV is full of people outraged by how unfunny such a display was, considering the fact that his “errors” led to the deaths of so many people.

But it was funny. And it was funny because here was this liar, everyone listening knows he’s a liar, and he is joking about lying to everyone. And most of the media thought it was hilarious too, even though the joke was really on them.

It was so funny I cried.

Meanwhile, the Americans were working closely with Spanish diplomats at the UN to push the Security Council resolution in words which suited Madrid.

America’s permanent representative to the UN, John Negroponte told reporters that the Bush administration was satisfied with the Aznar government’s explanation.

“It is the judgment that these attacks were carried out by the ETA and we have no information to the contrary.” The resolution, adopted unanimously, “condemns in the strongest terms the bomb attacks in Madrid, Spain, perpetrated by the terrorist group ETA on 11 March 2004.”

Oh, wait. That’s the wrong resolution. This is the one they vetoed:

U.S. vetoes U.N. resolution condemning Israel

Although the US is expected to use its veto if necessary, such a move will put Washington in an uncomfortable position amid worldwide denunciation of the killing, diplomats said.

However, US ambassador John Negroponte yesterday reiterated US opposition to any Security Council resolution that fails to spell out Hamas’ responsibility for the waves of suicide bombers who have attacked Israel.

“These questions must be put in a context and there cannot be unbalanced resolutions that condemn one side without looking at the overall context of the situation,” Negroponte said.

“If the Security Council is going to pronounce itself on these questions, it must recognise the reality,” he said.

I’m sure no one thinks the Americans are total hypocrites or anything.

The vote was 11 countries in favor, three countries abstaining and one country – the United States – against.

As usual.

UPDATE: Here’s the text of what the Americans vetoed:

“The Security Council, recalling its resolutions 242 (1967); 338 (1973), 1397 (2002), 1435 (2002), 1515 (2003),

“Expressing its grave concern at the continued deterioration of the situation on the ground in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, as a result of the escalation of violence and attacks,

“1. Condemns the most recent extrajudicial execution committed by Israel, the occupying Power, that killed Sheikh Ahmed Yassin along with six other Palestinians outside a mosque in Gaza City and calls for a complete cessation of extrajudicial executions;

“2. Condemns also all terrorist attacks against any civilians as well as all acts of violence and destruction;

“3. Calls on all sides to immediately undertake an unconditional cessation of acts of violence, including all acts of terrorism, provocation, incitement and destruction;

“4. Calls for the cessation of all illegal measures and practices and for respect for and adherence to international humanitarian law;

“5. Calls on both parties to fulfill their obligations under the road map endorsed by Security Council resolution 1515 (2003) and to work with the Quartet to implement it in order to achieve the vision of the two states living side by side in peace and security;

“6. Decides to remain seized of the matter.”

Here’s an interesting new twist in the ongoing Successful Liberation of Iraq.

…..the director general of the Northern Iraqi Oil Co said an explosion set an oil well ablaze in northern Iraq.

“The explosion occurred at 3:30 pm (1230 GMT) because of an explosive charge planted by unknown individuals inside the well, located 75 kilometres west of Kirkuk,” said Adel Qazzaz.

“It inflicted massive damage in the well, and firefighters are having a hard time extinguishing it because the explosion occurred inside the well and not in the pipelines,” he said.

So, the guerillas are actually planting explosives inside oil wells. It is difficult to see how this wouldn’t be an inside sabotage job, which indicates that guerillas have infiltrated whatever security exists at the oil fields around Kirkuk.

Proving once again that the Bushies are totally disconnected from reality and have no clue how their actions affect people around the world, Bush offers a tasteless and crude presentation in a tin-eared effort to suck up to the American media:

Bush put on a slide show, calling it the “White House Election-Year Album” at the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association 60th annual dinner, showing himself and his staff in some decidedly unflattering poses.

There was Bush looking under furniture in a fruitless, frustrating search. “Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere,” he said.

Ha ha ha! No WMD! No doubt, this girl sees the humor –
Walter Reed! In the Amputee Ward! Those guys need to be cheered up and I bet they’ll really get how funny it is that there are no WMDs in Iraq!

Crossposted at UnFairWitness

From Reason‘s other Young comes another courageous defense of the Bush administration:

Iraq always was essential to the anti-terrorism battle precisely because victory there was regarded as necessary to transform societies from where terrorists, spawned by suffocating regimes, had emerged. One can disagree with the practicability of such a strategy, but it is difficult to fault its logic.

…

Whatever the dissembling from officials seeking justification for an invasion of Iraq—and there is no doubt the effort was improperly managed thanks, in part, to harshly contending agendas within the Bush administration—the diagnosis was a correct one.

The best response to this came from a Hit & Run poster, who wrote,

OK, let me see if I understand this:

1) They didn’t tell us the REAL reason for the war because they figured that We the People might put the kibbosh on the war.

2) But despite that obvious disrespect for We The People they still want to install representative government in Iraq.

3) They can’t actually transform American inner-cities into beacons of security, prosperity, and the rule of law, despite generations of social engineering. However, they’re confident that they can get Iraq right.

4) Moreover, they’re confident that, after pulling off the first successful social engineering project in the history of the federal government, the results of this successful project will create a domino effect in the rest of the region.

Man, I thought Bush had laid off the Colombian stuff. I’d say he’s still doing some sort of mind-altering substance if he actually thinks this plan will work. Pass me some of that neocon weed, man!