- President Bush's State of the Union speech
confirms what we have long maintained on this website: the "war on
terrorism" is not a defensive operation, but a war of conquest. In
the wake of 9/11, we endorsed a limited police action narrowly aimed at
getting the perpetrators and bringing them to justice: the title of my
column, "Kill 'Em - and Get Out!" pretty much summed up our editorial
position. It is clear, after listening to the President threaten the so-called
Axis of Evil, that the US is no longer fighting a just war, if it ever
was. After all the railing and ranting against Osama bin Laden, Bush did
not mention his name once, and only alluded to the Evil One indirectly
when he gloated over how the terrorist leaders are "on the run."
It looks like the US government has pretty much lost sight of OBL - and
they're hoping the American people will do the same.
-
- THE GREAT DIVERSION
-
- It's instructive - and not surprising
to libertarians - that the one legitimate goal of this war, getting Osama
and wiping out Al Qaeda - has been thoroughly botched. Everything but that
has been accomplished: we have overthrown the Taliban, brought Pakistan
and India to the brink of thermonuclear meltdown, and alienated our oldest
allies in the region, the Saudis. Kites are once again flying in Kabul
- but where's Osama? The US government couldn't care less: instead of capturing
or killing this monster (and bringing America's holy crusade to a premature
end) they are much more concerned with widening the war to include the
oil-rich regions of the Middle East.
-
- TWO THUMBS DOWN
-
- Despite the huzzahs from the President's
amen corner - which now include Democrats as well as Republicans when it
comes to foreign policy - as propaganda Bush's speech was remarkably dull
and unconvincing. He started out touting our glorious victory, celebrating
the ignominious defeat of a bunch of bedraggled half-civilized tribesmen
by the mightiest army on earth: we not only "rallied a great coalition,"
he declared, but also
-
- "Captured, arrested and rid the
world of thousands of terrorists, destroyed Afghanistan's terrorist training
camps, saved a people from starvation and freed a country from brutal oppression."
-
- As if the outcome was ever in doubt -
and the warlords hadn't already started shooting at each other. Never has
there been so much chest-pounding bravado and triumphalist hysteria over
so little. When Caesar subdued the Gauls, he didn't make half as much noise
about it. Okay, then, so we won: mission accomplished, over and out. Ah,
but not so fast
-
- WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN
-
- We are told that thousands of terrorists
- Bush says as many as 100,000 - are roaming the earth, with but one thought
in mind: to target America:
-
- "What we have found in Afghanistan
confirms that, far from ending there, our war against terror is only beginning.
Most of the 19 men who hijacked planes on September the 11th were trained
in Afghanistan's camps. And so were tens of thousands of others. Thousands
of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported
by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the world like ticking time
bombs, set to go off without warning."
-
- BUSH'S BLANK CHECK
-
- Bush wants a blank check, and, unfortunately,
Americans have been frightened into giving it to him - a decision we will
all live to regret. The idea that we discovered all these secret terrorist
plans, just laying around right out in the open, strains credulity, but
then Americans are not inclined these days to examine the evidence too
closely, even if it were readily available. Given the alleged scale of
the danger we face - a horde of 100,000 barbarians, all clamoring to get
into the imperial metropolis - how is it that we've just now started examining
all airline luggage? Where are the checkpoints, the armed guards, the tanks
in the streets? If Bush's numbers are even remotely true, then calling
for a moratorium on all immigration would be the least he could do. Yet
it hasn't happened.
-
- DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE
-
- There's something awfully phony about
a "war on terrorism" where the terrorist-in-chief, Osama bin
Laden, is dropped down the Memory Hole and new hate objects - Iraq, Iran,
North Korea, aka The Axis of Evil - suddenly loom large. It's bad enough
that the nation with the biggest and deadliest war arsenal is now inveighing
against "weapons of mass destruction," but to top it off Bush
points an accusing finger at the pitiful and near-collapsing regime of
North Korea, where the half-mad son of the late Great Leader presides over
a nation of bark-eating concentration camp victims. If Osama is hiding
out in Pyongyang, he's going to get plenty of roughage.
-
- NO ONE IS SAFE
-
- No evidence links Iraq, or Iran for that
matter, to the events of 9/11. To say nothing of North Korea. But anyone
who thinks this war is about 9/11 any longer isn't paying attention. It's
a power grab, pure and simple, a war in which not even our allies in the
region are safe. The other day, Bush's conservative fan club over at National
Review came out in an editorial for the conquest of the Saudi oil fields.
Complaining that the Saudis may be asking us to quit our bases their, the
editors of NR opine that this would be such a "stinging blow to American
prestige" and provide the terrorists with such "vindication,"
that therefore,
-
- "The House of Saud will have sided
with the militants, and America will therefore have to do all it can to
overthrow it. For years, the U.S. has maintained a presence in Saudi Arabia
to prevent the massive oil fields there from being taken over by a hostile
power. Too late."
-
- THE GRABBERS
-
- It is a stunning feature of post-9/11
irrationalism that such a statement could be seriously made by the editors
of a reputable periodical, conservative or liberal, without much explication,
and still be considered in the "mainstream." To define the Saudis
as a "hostile power" having "taken over" their own
country is typical of our nutty neo-imperialist mindset: what's frightening
is that, with this State of the Union speech, the brazen grabbiness of
the War Party has shaped the contours of US foreign policy.
-
- LIVING IN THE FREE WORLD
-
- The President welcomed "the distinguished
interim leader of a liberated Afghanistan, Chairman Hamid Karzai"
- the fashion-plate President of the freest country in the world, where
even pederasty is legal. This cute touch is no doubt what inspired Bill
Kristol to note that our true enemy "goes beyond terror":
-
- "It is a war against dangerous tyrannies
seeking weapons of mass destruction... In fact, since 'no nation is exempt'
from the 'true and unchanging' principles of liberty and justice, American
foreign policy can be said to be at war with tyranny in general."
-
- And he isn't talking about Rwanda. According
to the Kristolian interpretation of the Bush Doctrine, "our task,
in this 'decisive decade in the history of liberty,' is to promote the
principles of liberty and justice around the world - including in the Islamic
world."
-
- Read: especially in the Islamic world.
The conceit that we're going to create "democracy" at gunpoint
in a region of the world where both history and current events militates
against it is one not meant to be taken seriously. As Ariel Sharon's generals
move to create a "Greater Israel," and disenfranchise Israeli
Arabs, the depth of the US commitment to "democracy" and liberalism
is measured by our silence - and our subsidies.
-
- A BALD-FACED LIE
-
- The hypocritical cant that characterizes
this administration was really brought home in some of the small touches,
such as the appeal to women.
-
- "The last time we met in this chamber,
the mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes,
forbidden from working or going to school. Today women are free, and are
part of Afghanistan's new government. And we welcome the new minister of
women's affairs, Dr. Sima Samar."
-
- Good luck to Dr. Samar in talking the
Afghanis out of customs firmly rooted in culture and generously nurtured
by religion. Meanwhile, to say that "today women are free" in
Afghanistan is to utter a bald-faced lie. The mothers and daughters of
that ravaged land are still captives in their own homes, imprisoned by
accident of birth and hidden behind their veils. And there isn't a thing
Dr. Simar or President Bush can - or should - do about it.
-
- LEST WE FORGET
-
- The War Party keeps saying that we must
never forget 9/11 and yet their rationale for a wider conflict is by now
so attenuated from that event that they are the ones who seem to have forgotten.
As the pundits weighed in on the question of whether Bush hit a triple
or a home run, and the editor of National Review contemplated relaunching
the Crusades, Howard Fineman, reporting in Newsweek, noted that certain
aspects of the investigation into 9/11 seem to be stalled:
-
- "Dick Cheney was on the line, and
it wasn't to chitchat. The vice president rarely calls the Senate leader
- a Democrat he dismisses as an 'obstructionist' - so Tom Daschle knew
the topic was important when he hurried into his Capitol office. What he
heard was a plea, and a warning. The Senate will soon launch hearings on
why we weren't prepared for, and warned about, September 11. The intelligence
committee will study the matter, but mostly behind closed doors. Cheney
was calling to preemptively protest public hearings by other committees.
If the Democrats insisted, Bush administration officials might say they're
too busy running the war on terrorism to show up. Press the issue, Cheney
implied, and you risk being accused of interfering with the mission."
-
- THE 9/11 COVER-UP
-
- The last thing this administration wants
is an investigation into the circumstances surrounding 9/11 - what we knew,
what we didn't know, and who may have had advance knowledge. After conceding
that "people need to know what happened," Senate Democratic leader
Tom Daschle was reportedly "noncommittal" - meaning that the
Democrats have as much interest as the Republicans in keeping this thing
under wraps. After all, the 9/11 attacks were years in the making, and
if anyone is going to receive the lion's share of the blame, then surely
it is the Clinton administration.
-
- Which raises the question: then why aren't
the Republicans pressing for a fully public investigation? It's mighty
odd passing up a chance to score political points in an election year -
unless, of course, this administration has something to hide.
-
- CONGRESS MUST INVESTIGATE
-
- What's needed is a full and completely
open congressional investigation into how Al Qaeda managed to operate right
under our noses for years without anyone knowing it. Billions were spent
in the name of "fighting terrorism"; task forces were convened,
legislation was passed, special programs were set up - all, apparently,
to no avail. What's up with that? Inquiring minds want to know.
-
- Oh, but that would interfere with "the
mission," says Cheney. This is true only if "the mission"
is an attempted cover-up of some of the worst criminal incompetence in
the history of intelligence-gathering. Good lord, what is wrong with the
American people? When are they going to snap out of their TV-induced stupor
and start asking some questions? The smoke had barely cleared from the
air over Pearl Harbor before the Republicans of 1941 started questioning
the Official Story - even if it did take some 50 years to vindicate them.
This time around, both parties have an interest in covering up the truth.
-
- NEVER FORGET - EXCEPT SOMETIMES
-
- Ah yes, we must never forget 9/11 - except
we have to forget about ever knowing why and how it happened. If a national
movement calling on Congress to investigate the events surrounding 9/11
does not rise up and demand a full accounting, then this country is brain-dead
and not worth saving.
___
-
-
- Justin Raimondo is the editorial director
of Antiwar.com. He is also the author of Reclaiming the American Right:
The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (with an Introduction by Patrick
J. Buchanan), (1993), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against US
Intervention in the Balkans (1996). He is an Adjunct Scholar with the Ludwig
von Mises Institute, in Auburn, Alabama, a Senior Fellow at the Center
for Libertarian Studies, and writes frequently for Chronicles: A Magazine
of American Culture. He is the author of An Enemy of the State: The Life
of Murray N. Rothbard.
-
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