2003 - Doublespeak Finally Adopted

2003 - Doublespeak Finally Adopted - The Star-Tribune editorial board outdoes itself with today's editoral, begging the question: do they carry the Democrats' water in a big jug, or in individual bottles?:

"Almost immediately following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration began building a case for taking down the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. President Bush gave two principal justifications: Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that were a threat to the United States and the world, and had close links to Al-Qaida -- to which he might pass some of his WMD stores. It was a mantra repeated again and again, to the point that some polls now show 70 percent of the American people believing Iraq was linked to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Perhaps, but also irrelevant.

Whether there was a link between Saddam an 9/11 or not, there are unquestionable links between the Hussein regime and terror in general. To draw an artificial, legally-pointillistic distinction between Al Quaeda and any of the tongue-twisting array of other butchers - Hamas, Jamiyat-e-Islami, the PLO, the Islamic Jihad - is the sort of speciousness that explains why the likes of Bill Clinton and David Lillehaug are so popular among DFLers.

That is false. There were no links between Iraq and those attacks, and no evidence has surfaced that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction.

The Strib is lying.

If there was "no" evidence, then why was the entire world, including the UN, worried enough about it to pass resolution upon resolution?

The inescapable conclusion is that at the time of the U.S.-British attack on Iraq, that country posed no terrorist threat to the United States and no threat of attack with WMD.

I'd like to ask the Strib Editorial Board - what's the threshold for something to be considered a "threat"?

Remember - while building an atomic bomb or Sarin gas for the first time is a Nobel prize-winning effort, after a few dozen or hundred or thousand have been built it becomes more a matter of craftsmanship - having the right skills and equipment - and information. Since the information needed to build a bomb or refine Sarin from pesticide can be burned onto a single compact disk, which would be very difficult to find in an area the size of California (assuming ten low-key militants didn't simply pocket CDs and flee to the four corners of the world), the Strib's point is specious; information and knowledge are themselves threats in this age, when the precursors for WMDs are mere commodities.

That was then; this is now: In an address on Sunday evening, President Bush asserted that Iraq is 'the central front' in the war on terrorism. He may well be right. If so, it is a situation of his making. He confronted an Iraq that was no threat and succeeded in converting it into one.

Orwell was 19 years off, but Doublespeak has finally arrived. Hussein was benign; a free people are malignant. When a nation that has a long, bloody history of committing and supporting terror has free reign to develop, buy and distribute any weapons they want, any way they want, it's no problem; when US troops control the place, it fullfills the prophesies of terror. Liberation is terrorism. Freedom is slavery.The Strib continues:

But look at the damage created along the way:

• By going into Iraq against the wishes of most U.N. Security Council members, Bush squandered the remainder of post-Sept. 11 international goodwill for the United States. Most of the world now regards the United States as an arrogant cowboy nation that believes its military and economic might gives it the right to behave as it desires anywhere.
• By going into Iraq almost alone, Bush guaranteed the United States would bear most of the burden in reconstructing Iraq. And that burden is proving huge, in lives and treasure.

Let's assume, for a moment, that France's "goodwill" was completely on the level (and that is to say the least questionable): "Goodwill" doesn't protect you from terror (and France's "goodwill" ended long before Iraq became an issue in the war on terror).

And are we alone? Troops from nearly three dozen nations are with us in Iraq now; moreover, they're from nations that have an interest in preserving freedom; from nations just getting free of totalitarians as bad as Hussein (Poles, Albanians, Czechs, Bulgarians) and from others that remember all-too-keenly the horrors of dictatorship, and have quietly vowed never to forget (Norway, the Netherlands).

Does the Strib editorial board honestly believe that the military effort will be better served by adding troops from Fiji, Ireland and the Philippines?

Worse - does the Strib pay any attention to history at all? The UN's efforts at military intervention have not only almost uniformly been disasters, the very names of the interventions have come into the language as synonyms for bungling, bureaucratic inertia, lethally inept micromanagment; Congo. Brazzaville. Biafra. The Golan Heights and Lebanon. Somalia. Srebrenice. The Congo again. Rwanda.

The Strib continues:

U.S. assessments of the state of the infrastructure in Iraq were inexcusably worthless,

...for the simple reason that we've only liberated one totalitarian dictatorship before.

Under dictatorships, there is none of what we Americans call "process". The people who run the infrastructure tend to accumulate the knowledge of how to do it, and keep it amongst themselves as institutional knowledge, almost like ancient tribal bards who kept collective history in the form of songs and stories, long before there was such a thing as written communication. The Germans were at least fanatical keepers of records; the Iraqis were apparently not. In addition, while the US allowed ex-Nazis who were not associated with war crimes to man key infrastructural posts after the war, we've barred Baathists from those same positions - justifiably, but in so doing we've also barred their specialized knowledge of how things run from the process as well. It'd be as if KSTP fired Paul Brand from Auto Talk; the Rookie could probably host the show, but it'll take years to develop the expertise about cars that'd make the transition complete.

The Strib goes on:

The belief that American soldiers would be joyfully greeted as liberators has turned into a grim reality of being greeted by rocket propelled grenades and homemade bombs.

The belief that they woudn't be greeted as liberators in the vast majority of the country was a more malignant fantasy still. And the notion that they'd be greeted as they were after World War II, with rapturous crowds in the villages, was a simple-minded bit of spin on the left's part anyway; after the UN-brokered betrayal of the Kurds and Marsh Arabs in 1991, Iraqis were justifiably cautious; as the Zogby Poll from Tuesday shows, they also appreciate being liberated.

A corollary notion behind the invasion of Iraq is that the United States would awe the Arab world with its military strength, contributing positively to chances of a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, and setting off a wave of reform in the oppressive Arab world. But it hasn't worked out that way. Instead, the United States has given the world a fascinating glimpse at the limits of American power.

Really?

I guess that explains all the terrorist attacks we've had in the past six months, right?

Belatedly, and half-heartedly, the United States has gone back to the United Nations -- but not hat in hand. The Bush administration can't seem to set aside its arrogant approach to the world body. As someone said, the Bush administration is now in the position of asking for rescue but insisting it will dictate the terms.

The Strib's editorial board has it backwards.

The UN demanded its piece of the liberation, even though it was not only unprepared to do the work involved in achieving it (even assuming that the bulk of the UN wanted to pursue any but another pusillanimous set of wrist-slapping resolutions), but actively impeded it.

Bush is now telling the UN to put up or shut up. Arrogant? Perhaps. Justifiable? Damn right.

If anyone thinks that litany is recounted with glee, they're mistaken. The United States can't afford to lose in Iraq. It must stay there and finish the difficult job it has begun.

True, and we will, even despite the best efforts of people like the Strib editorial board.

And it must mend its relationship with the world community.

The Strib still doesn't get it. The only thing that mends relationships, when you're the big dog on the block, is success. Being seen as the only (rational) game in town will buy us a lot more international approval than decades of kowtowing to the Distinguished Representatives from Bumfungle, Buttlustistan and the Hellspawn Islands.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is now beating the abusive drum that criticism of the president is unpatriotic and undercuts the American effort. He couldn't be more mistaken. Americans owe it to their nation, and to the men and women who serve in its military, to ask the difficult questions.

Commensurately, we owe it to our nation to ask you, the news media, equally difficult answers, and questions of our own.

To wit:

The most important questions are these: Wasn't there a better way? And what can we learn from the past two years that will help make Sept. 11, 2004, an anniversary of both remembrance and relief?

OK, Strib; you've asked your tough question. Now, I'm going to ask mine.

What is the "better way" you'd like to see? Spell it out, in concrete detail - and I mean, every bit as concrete as the reality we currently face. Don't give it to us in terms of Hallmark-y platitudes about international goodwill; spell out the specifics in terms of efforts and strategies, of this "better way", and then spell out what you believe are the most likely consequences of your approach, especially in terms of eradicating terror.

And do it now.

If you work at the Strib - and according to my hit log, there are at least three of you, sometimes more - please pass this up to your editorial board. I hereby challenge them to debate this issue, in any forum of their choosing.

Posted by Mitch at September 12, 2003 10:54 AM