Top 10-11-12-the heck with it... Ways Bush Has helped the Terrorists.

[Mugsy]

Cross posted from the BI30 Archive Blog:
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The cease-fire in Israel seems to be holding and the Bush Administration is once again patting themselves on the back for "fixing" a problem they helped create. While the rest of the world was critical of Israel, calling their response an "over-reaction", the Bush Administration was unwilling to call for a cease-fire, even supplying the Israeli military with bombs. President Bush defended his decision on the grounds that "peace wasn't really peace" because there was always an underlying simmering hatred just below the surface. He pointed out how we were "at peace" when they attacked us on 9/11. Never mind that there had been a string of attacks and attempts on American targets all through the 90's following the first Gulf War in '91 when we based some 17,000 U.S. troops near Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

So here we are. A fragile cease-fire with anger simmering just below the surface. "Peace"... but not peace. Exactly the kind of "peace" we were told "wasn't really peace" barely more than a week ago... 800 dead Lebanese civilians and 39 dead Israeli civilians later (not to mention the hundreds of dead soldiers). Israel now more hated than ever in the heart of the Middle East. Lebanon, a fragile new Democracy that we did nothing to support after they so bravely expelled Syria from its decade-long occupation, most of its citizens, once ambivalent towards Hezbollah, now support the militant anti-Israel organization, blaming Israel, not Hezbollah, for the death and destruction inflicted upon them.

Hezbollah, in a PR move worthy of Karl Rove himself, has vowed to reconstruct every home and rebuild the entire country (with the generous support of Iran), leaving American and Israeli politicos scratching their heads wondering how to counter the "Good Will Coup" Hezbollah is enjoying as a result. The money, aid and reconstruction we supply is only seen as "owed", earning not a scintilla of "kudos-points".

So what have we earned from this little adventure? Israel is now hated by the closest thing it had to a burgeoning Democracy on its front doorstep, in addition to earning the condemnation of moderate Arab states in the region, and even more anger from those that already wanted them "wiped off the face of the Earth".

Once again, Iran expands its influence in the region, supporting a minor political faction in Lebanon that made up less than 11% of the Lebanese Parliament (14 out of 128 members) that is sure to see major gains in the next election.

So #1 on our list: Hezbollah's PR coup, now viewed more favorably by millions in the Middle East while the U.S. and Israel become even more despised.

From the very beginning of his Presidential campaign, President Bush was already talking about "terrorism"... but not bin Laden (the man behind everything from the '93 WTC bombing, the African Embassy bombings in '96, the thwarted "Millennium Plot" or the bombing of the USS Cole three months before). No, his target was Saddam Hussein, "the guy who once tried to kill my dad at one time":

February 16, 2000:

"<...> I'm just as frustrated as many Americans are that Saddam Hussein still lives. I think we ought to keep the pressure on him. I will tell you this: If we catch him developing weapons of mass destruction in any way, shape or form, I'll deal with that in a way that he won't like."

Yes, those dreaded "Weapons of Mass Destruction".

When bin Laden finally confessed to orchestrating the attacks on 9/11, he pointed specifically to the presence of our troops in Saudi Arabia... the Arab Holy Land... as the justification. So barely 6 weeks after the invasion of Iraq and two days before "Mission Accomplished", President Bush did Osama the biggest favor one could do for a close family friend, he pulled our troops out of Saudi Arabia, closed the base and moved the whole lot of them to their new home in Baghdad.

So #2 on our list: Pulling U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia like Osama wanted.

Before the invasion of Iraq, President Bush gave the following reason why such an invasion was necessary:

"Imagine a terrorist network with Iraq as an arsenal and as a training ground..." - (President George W. Bush giving reason why we should invade Iraq 11/4/02)

DoD estimates put the number of "insurgents" in Iraq at ~20,000... ~800 of which are foreign fighters that have declared allegiance to al-Qaeda and bin Laden. Iraq has proven not only a source of continuing proof of "American Imperialism", "war mongering" and "war on Islam", but is providing al-Qaeda with the very "live fire" training ground President Bush cited as justification for invading Iraq.

Now, to be fair, President Bush didn't specifically SAY that Iraq becoming a terrorist traing ground was a BAD thing, he just told us to "imagine it".

So #3 on our list: We no longer need to "imagine" Iraq becoming a terrorist training ground, it now is.

You've probably heard the stories that in the days immediately following 9/11, members of the bin Laden family were permitted to fly out of the country following a cursory 20 minute interview each, at the behest of the Saudi government, fearing that members of the wealthy and politically connected bin Laden family might become targets of violence and reprisals in the wake of 9/11. President Bush, whose family had been doing business with bin Laden Construction for several decades, gave the bin Laden's the green light to leave the country in private chartered jets.

Former President George H.W. Bush was at a meeting of The Carlyle Group, a private investment firm, in the Ritz-Carlton hotel in D.C. with Shafiq bin Laden, brother of Osama when planes struck the Twin Towers in New York. Shafiq was among those allowed to flee the country in the wake of the attacks.

So #4 on our list: Assisting the bin Laden family to flee the country after 9/11.

I just caught myself wondering something I hadn't thought of before: Why was there no "Mission Accomplished" victory speech after Afghanistan? Think about it. The invasion of Afghanistan, deposing the Taliban and installing a new government headed by Hamid Karzai took roughly the same amount of time as the overthrow of Saddam. And just as in Iraq, we hadn't caught bin Laden anymore than we captured Saddam before declaring "Mission Accomplished", so why no victory speech on the deck of an aircraft carrier after the overthrow of the Taliban?

Might it have been that Afghanistan was an unwelcome distraction from their Prize... the invasion of Iraq... that they had been pining for for the past decade? ("Okay, we got Afghanistan out of the way, now back to business.")

Of course, the conflict in Afghanistan was no more "Mission Accomplished" before we invaded Iraq than Iraq was when President Bush was ferried out to the USS Abraham Lincoln after the fall of Baghdad, but that didn't stop him from making his grand (tragically premature) declaration of victory. Why no dramatic declaration of victory in Afghanistan?

Well, the most obvious answer is because bin Laden had not been caught. The American people never would have stood for such a declaration of victory in Afghanistan without his capture. So if we could not declare "Victory" without Osama "dead or alive", why were we talking about Iraq before "Mission Accomplished" in Afghanistan?

Relying on the local militia and allowing Osama bin Laden to escape at Tora Bora is #5 on our list.

The attacks on 9/11 shocked the world. Not just the Western World and Americas' allies, but many in the Muslim world were taken aback as the sight of those towers on fire and the thousands that were murdered.

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A general feeling that al Qaeda might have gone "too far" swept across the world. On September 18, 2001, Iranians and Palestinians took to the streets in Candlelight Vigils for the American victims. The prayers and good will of the world were focused on the United States. How best to take advantage of that Good Will than to invade an oil-rich Muslin country in an unprovoked attack that has now cost the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens?

Everything that Osama bin Laden was saying about America was coming true. Our "goal", he claimed, "is to conquer the Islamic World, occupy their land and steal their oil", and suddenly, there we were, invading Iraq, bombing civilians and securing Iraqi oil fields.

So for pissing away the global support and empathy felt towards the United States after 9/11 and "proving Osama right", we have #6.

Before the invasion of Iraq, al Qaeda was a small terrorist organization with perhaps 100 members. Today, al Qaeda loyalists number in the thousands, operating out of 34 countries across the world. The occupation and daily violence in Iraq, their greatest recruiting tool.

Turning Iraq into a recruitment poster for al Qaeda is #7.

Last June, USA Today reported on the growing resurgence of the Taliban, forcing us to move 10,000 additional troops back into Afghanistan. The new Afghani government lacks the power nor influence to quash this resurgence on its own, so five years after 9/11, coalition troops are still fighting and dying in Afghanistan... and now the war is expanding just as Iraq teeters on the brink of civil war.

The resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan due to neglect ranks #8.

And while we are on the subject of the Taliban, this extremist totalitarian repressive Theocracy was once welcomed by our government for its crackdown on the cultivation and sale of Opium. Peddling the drug was considered "profiting off human misery" and therefore banned. Those who violated the ban were subject to severe prosecution, even death.

In May of 2001, the Bush administration gave the Taliban $10 Million dollars to fight Opium growth in Afghanistan. Today, Afghanistan is once again the leading source of Opium/Heroin on the planet, with over 370 thousand acres of Poppy fields across the country, only this time, instead of banning it, the Taliban is profiting off it, using the money it makes off this profitable cash crop to fund its resurgence. Already suffering from dire poverty prior to 9/11, nearly all Afghani farmers now raise this profitable crop as the only thing they can grow that actually earns them any money. And their number one customer: the United States.

The return of Afghanistan as the leading supplier of Heroin to the world: #9.

Ace BBC reporter Greg Palast made the following observation last week when Bush's "traffic light of fear" was dusted off and raised to "Code Red" for all flights from the UK into the United States: "Why do we have a terror alert system that tells the terrorists when we are on/off alert?"

"America is the only nation on the planet that kindly informs bombers, hijackers and berserkers the days on which they won't be monitored. You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to get a jump on George Bush's team."

What do YOU do differently when they change the color of the National "Threat Level"? What do you think THE TERRORISTS do differently depending upon our current threat level? So why do it?

Keeping you scared to keep them in power by using a warning system that tips off the terrorists while doing nothing for us, pulls in #10.

On October 10, 2001, President Bush answered the question on the minds of so many clueless Americans unaware of our involvement in the Middle East, "Why do they hate us?". His simplistic and wildly off the mark answer: "They hate us for our freedoms" was his response... a sort of "feel-good" blameless reasoning that allowed millions of Americans to continue feeling like victims rather than victimizers.

So, if "our freedoms" are encouraging people to attack us, then what better way to fix it than to take those freedoms away. "The Patriot Act", a sweeping litany of super-Constitutional investigative tools was quickly passed in the wake of 9/11 largely unread by most members of Congress.

Oddly, not one member of Congress wondered, "How did you come up with this so fast?" New laws that allowed our government to spy on its own people, search our homes without a warrant, even confiscate items without so much as telling you what was taken; force librarians to turn over reading lists and monitor those that request and check out "flagged" reading material (a provision the nations librarians mostly refused to cooperate with and forced removal from the Patriot Act); and monitor our phone calls, again, without warrant.

And our greatest freedom: living without constant fear or in a perpetual state of anxiety, hammered home with daily announcements that "we still are not safe", "the violence is growing", and the infamous "color-coded threat level" mentioned above, gone.

Taking away many of the very freedoms President Bush said "they hate us for" is #11.

In his 2003 "State of the Union", President Bush included Iran and North Korea in his "Axis of Evil" speech, then proceeded to make a case for invading Iraq based upon trumped up evidence. Now on alert, and no longer cooperating with U.S. or UN authorities, Iran and North Korea quickly resumed their long mothballed nuclear weapons ambitions.

Teaching the rest of the world that the best way to prevent being invaded for having "weapons of mass destruction" is TO ACTUALLY HAVE THEM ranks #12.

Iraq and Iran were at war for nearly eight years (September 1980 to August 1988), and the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein in that time as a check on Iran. Saddam was our good friend and President Ronald Reagan sent "Special Envoy to the Middle East" Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad to pledge the United States' continued support. With the removal of Saddam Hussein, that check on Iran was lifted.

Removing Iraq as a check on Iran: #13.

Okay, you get it by now. The list goes on forever. A general disdain for other religions and cultures bred by this Administration contributed to the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. Imprisonment without trial... a violation that cuts to the very core of what it means to be an American... allows the rest of the world to point to "Gitmo" as "the anti-Statue of Liberty". Iraq, once a secular nation where women could vote, go to school and drive cars, and the three religious factions of Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurds lived together in one country, has given rebirth to extreme religious fundamentalism, women in black burkas that dare not show their faces in public, in a country on the brink of civil war and a government allying itself with Iran.

I have no doubt I'm forgetting many many more obvious and dramatic examples. I invite you to visit bi30.info and add your own to the list.

[muntrv]

1. Yep. Keep adding to the list, cuz' it's only gonna get larger.

[IndependentVoice]

2. Great job on the list

sad that many people wan't read it beacuse of its length. It is well written and must have taken quite awile to make. You really did a good job with this keep up the good work

[Mugsy]

3. Thanks. Visit the blog for more.

Yes, it did take a while to write. Hopefully, others will bump it because it is so long so that more see it.

I recommend just quickly reading the BOLDED points first then going back for a full read.

[NewJeffCT]

4. Excellent list - a comment & a question

First, I recommended your list.

Another comment to add to the terrorism is announcing a troop withdrawal from South Korea. If it was a Democrat that did it, they would call it "cutting & running" instead of strategic redeployment. But, we've had troops in South Korea since the 1940s and NK has wanted nothing more than to have our troops out of there. NK gets nukes, starts rattling its saber, and presto, Team Bush announces its withdrawal.

My question is - where did you get 100 for the number of members of Al Qaeda prior to 9/11?

[Mugsy]

5. CNN

It took a bit of reasearch, but I found a pre-2001 story on CNN.com that surmised that al-Qaeda consisted of "about 100 members, though the actual number is probably not known."

The factoid, buried deep in an otherwise long report, was so obscure, I didn't think to include a link. :(

Accurate or not, it is nowhere near the "3000" number the DoD estimates today.