NOTE: This piece was written by Steven Leser, the owner of The Dumbya Chronicles. He asked for it to be spread around, so it is OK for me to put it here in its entirety."Why do you like Kerry? Don't you think Pres. Bush is doing a good job on the war on terror? Don't you remember 9/11?"
I am often asked such questions by Bush supporters when I am out promoting Kerry. There is a crucial disconnect of perception between Bush and Kerry supporters on these issues. I am going to try and do my best to explain what that disconnect is and why I think we Kerry supporters are right. One of the analogies I will use is boxing related. Specifically, when Muhammad Ali fought George Foreman for the heavyweight championship of the world in Zaire in the early 70's. For those unfamiliar with this, I will explain.
Muhammad Ali won that fight. Foreman was bigger, stronger and was favored by virtually everyone in the boxing world to win that fight. Foreman had already easily destroyed and knocked out Joe Frazier and Ken Norton, boxers with whom Ali struggled with a few years prior.
The difference is, Ali fought a smarter fight. Foreman did not think much about strategy because he thought he was far too powerful to lose. Ali was masterful. He made Foreman miss. He made him expend his strength on punches that didn't hit important areas. He layed on the ropes, made Foreman reach and miss and sapped Foreman's strength in a maneuver that was nicknamed the "Rope-a-Dope".
This is similar to what Al-Qaeda has accomplished with 9/11 thanks to the non-thinking of Bush and his administration. Many of us who disagree with the war in Iraq were with the President in going into Afghanistan. When I say 'WE' I mean those of us in the US who are now anti Iraq war. I mean France, Germany, the United Nations and virtually every country around the world. I mean the vast majority of the citizenry in virtually every country on the planet.
9/11 was an event that united the entire world in support of the United States. No one questioned our right to target the specific elements behind that attack. Even those of my friends on the left who are normally anti-war and anti-violence in virtually every other circumstance I can remember stood with the President in targeting Al-Qaeda training camps and their supporters, the Taliban, in Afghanistan.
Let's come back to this. What one needs to understand to correctly analyze the effectiveness of our efforts in the war on terror is to understands the goals of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and what steps, actions or events they think will help them achieve those goals. I hope this makes sense. To put it another way, We have goals, our enemy has goals, and to win, we need to deny our enemy the achievement of THEIR goals and achieve OUR goals.
So, what do bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda want and how do they expect to get there? In addition to getting the US out of the Middle East, and other interim goals, they want a world where the order, or rules, religion, etc., are defined by a rigid interpretation of Islam. They want all of us to be Moslems and they want our government and laws to be determined by and strictly interpreted according to Islamic law. Now, bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda know that these goals are completely incompatible with Democracy and the laws and constitutions of the Western countries among others. They know that in particular, the United States will never sit idly by while Islamic revolutions occur in states in the Middle East, let alone elsewhere. This presents a serious problem and roadblock to Al-Qaeda achieving its goals. But they have a solution, should they be able to bring it about. They intend to engineer a world war between the West on one side, (primarily championed of course by the United States) and believers of Islam on the other. Please note that I said believers of Islam on the other and did not specify countries or nation states. Islam is practiced by more than 1.6 Billion people around the world, primarily concentrated in North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Some 60-70 countries have 50% or more inhabitants who identify themselves as Moslem and some 100+ countries have very sizeable Islamic minorities.
What bin-Laden & Al-Qaeda need to do is convince a sizeable amount of the Moslems around the world that the West, and particular, the United States is their enemy. They intend to convince these people that the United States hates Moslems, indescriminately kills Moslems and seizes the land and belongings of Moslems without reason or for manufactured reasons and because of this, Moslems around the world need to unite and fight us. How to do this? They hoped 9/11 would cause the US to attack one or more predominantly Moslem countries.
Let us return to where we left off on Afghanistan. After 9/11 and even after we went into Afghanistan in its aftermath, the entire world, and the vast majority of Moslems and predominantly Islamic countries were supporting us. In fact, if we had left it at that, 9/11 would have turned out to be one of the worst strategic mistakes Al-Qaeda could have made. Everyone supported and sympathized with the United States in 9/11's aftermath. Then something happened that changed the whole equation.George Bush attempted to utilize 9/11 to justify an attack on Iraq. Let us again pause for a moment.
Besides the US and the West and, of course, Israel, bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda have another group of countries they absolutely hate. Those countries are those with predominantly Islamic inhabitants, but secular governments. This is completely against what Al-Qaeda is attempting to achieve and is a particular source of irritation to them. Countries in this category are Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and, until we invaded, Iraq.
What the American people have been sold regarding coordination between Iraq and Al-Qaeda is a complete lie.
Iraq and Al-Qaeda, Saddam and bin-Laden, hated each other. Saddam spent most of his reign surpressing the fundamentalist Islamics in his country and ensuring that they had no hold on power whatsoever. This is one of the reasons he was our guy in the Middle East for nearly two decades. We completely supported him in his war against Islamic fundamentalist Iran, and when he invaded Kuwait, he actually asked us before hand if it was OK to do so. Of course, the request was in diplomatic parlance, as was the response, and this miscommunication probably caused the war insomuch that if we had understood what was being asked, and our ambassador to Iraq made it clear we vehemently opposed such an action, I and many others strongly believe Saddam would not have invaded Kuwait. But I digress. Iraq and Al-Qaeda hated each other, and had no cooperation or coordination on ANYTHING, let alone 9/11. It should be clear from this paper that their goals are completely different.
Let me now repeat something I stated above before I continue: They (Al Qaeda) intend to convince these people (Moslems) that the United States hates Moslems, indescriminately kills Moslems and seizes the land and belongings of Moslems without reason or for manufactured reasons and because of this, Moslems around the world need to unite and fight us. Up until the lead up to the war on Iraq, the world's Moslems had little reason to believe bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda. Then Bush started talking about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. None were found. Bush talked about coordination between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, the Moslem world who understand what Al-Qaeda are trying to do, and know the antipathy between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, knew this to be nonsense. But, they saw the United States invade Iraq anyway. They saw the news reports and pictures of dead and maimed Iraqi citizens, many more pictures than we got to see in the United States, in fact. They know about the allegations that the US wants Iraqi oil. Do you, out in middle America, now understand what a horrible mistake this war was? It gets worse. It has produced an unbelievable upsurge in Al-Qaeda recruitment. What better recruiting poster could bin-Laden have asked for than tens and hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed Iraqi civilians plastered all over television in a war whose goals are terribly questionable at best?
With this war, bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda have Rope-a-Doped Bush, and therefore the United States and the West. We have lost 1000 soldiers, spent over 100 Billion dollars, enraged many Moslems around the world, stretched our military thin, frayed or ruptured our alliances with key countries in the West and around the world and have achieved NOTHING in the war on terror except perhaps to boost Al-Qaeda recruitment. And about the argument that says Bush achieved something because there has been no attack since 9/11, 9/11 was an operation that we know took Al-Qaeda at least 5 years to put together, place people in the US to execute it, etc. We don't know what there timetable might be to execute another one, and there is no way to know the answers to these questions. One thing we do know, Bush has allowed bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda to achieve their 9/11 goals beyond their most wild dreams. Now, answering the questions in the first sentence above in reverse order. Yes, I remember 9/11, I think President Bush has completely failed in the war on terror to the point that he has inadvertently (out of stupidity) aided and abetted the enemy. I like Kerry because I think he is a thinker, is magnitudes smarter than Bush and would not have made this stupid mistake.
Steven Leser
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