Shockingly The New York Times endorses John Kerry for President. - Kevin Aylward.Once one considers the paltry evidence upon which such endorsement is based, is it really any wonder why such paper is so oft referred to as a liberal rag? Posted by Tiger at October 17, 2004 10:18 AM
Let me go into a few reasons if I can, quickly.
1. Iraq was not collaborating with al-Qaeda, and experts have been aware of this for quite some time. The State Department listed 45 countries in which al-Qaeda was operating on 9/11/01, and Iraq wasn't one of them.
2. Saddam did in fact let the UN inspectors into the country. The inspectors encountered "relatively few difficulties." You can't take the Bush administration's words at face-value. Actually, that's the understatement of the decade.
3. Iraq was not an imminent threat, by any stretch of the imagination. Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Association told us prior to the invasion that Iraq's nuclear program was a joke. There was no Iraqi terrorism against the United States. Iraq was not collaborating with al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda called Iraq an "apostate regime" and "infidels." Saddam Hussein tried to keep his country free of Islamic extremists, believing them to be a threat to his secular regime. He had been sitting quietly in the Middle East for over a decade.
4. We had a solemn duty to focus on those who killed 3000 American civilians on 9/11. Instead, shortly after 9/11 Bush said of bin Laden, "I'm not that concerned about him." He said, "I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care." He added, "I am deeply concerned about Iraq." Members of Bush's administration had been focusing on Iraq since the late 90's, and not because of terrorism. Thus Bush -- unbelievably -- took his eye off the real target and followed a few of his friends on a foreign policy adventure.
5. The State Department tells us that terrorism around the world has spiked since the war began. It tells us that anti-American anger in the Middle East has reached "shocking levels." Terrorism experts say the war in Iraq has greatly boosted terrorist recruiting in the region. Iraq in particular had no significant population of Islamic extremists pre-9/11, and is now a breeding grounds and recruiting grounds.
6. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi didn't care all that much about America before we invaded Iraq. He was focused on other things, and was not aligned with al-Qaeda. Because of the Iraq war, however, he now has little choice but to focus on America. He was in the northern region of Iraq outside Saddam's control, focusing on the Kurds, Jordan, and to a lesser degree, Saddam. After we moved in, we became the obvious target. Just in the last week or so, there's evidence he's now sworn allegience to al-Qaeda.
7. The leaders of al-Qaeda pre-9/11 were Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. We have not captured either, nor put forth nearly enough effort to do so. The man who was sheltering them, the leader of the Taliban Mullah Omar, also not captured. Now they have Zarqawi to help them out, plus hordes of willing recruits thanks to the unprecedented anti-American anger. The anger is not only in the Middle East, but also among allies upon which we rely to help us reduce terrorism. Fox News actually reported that 40% of Canadian teenagers think America is "evil." Imagine what the Arab world thinks.
8. Bush's economic and fiscal policy is dangerous. His economics is more based on ideology than analyticism, and it has not been good for either the economy or for our nation's fiscal health (i.e. budget deficits). Bush's plan is basically, no matter what, we need lots of very simple tax cuts for the wealthy (mostly for the wealthy). We've never cut taxes before while in the process of spending hundreds of billions of dollars invading and occupying another nation. That's ridiculous. This war averages out to several thousand dollars per family so far. This is money we could have spent much better on homeland security, which bipartisan experts tell us we are underfunding and not sufficiently improving. But while tax cuts on the wealthy may have their place, they simply are not a one-size-fits-all approach to managing the economy. That's one reason why the economy feels out-of-whack right now to most people, despite the Bush administrations persistently rosy projections.
9. Bush's energy policy is too in bed with traditional oil to come up with the truly innovative solutions we need in order to wean ourselves of our dangerous dependence on foreign oil. The Bush administration has a few plans but never invests in them. Perhaps it's because they are the most closely allied with the traditional oil industry of any White House in US history (honorable mention to HW). Bush comes from a prominent oil family. Cheney was the CEO of a major oil services company, picking up a large check just days before being sworn in. Condoleezza Rice had an oil tanker named after her. Commerce Secretary Don Evans was the CEO of an oil exploration company. At the time Cheney was formulating the nation's energy policy in a secretive energy task force in the spring of 2001, he met with Enron executives six times, including CEO Ken Lay. (For reference, the administration did not hold a cabinet-level meeting on terrorism until the week before 9/11/01.)
10. Bush has allied himself with part of the industry lobby that believes that global warming is not even a valid scientific concept. In 2000, he promised to try to find solutions. Instead he forced former EPA Director Christie Todd Whitman to deny that global warming exists. She is no longer with the administration. (Also no longer with the administration, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who argued that it was reckless to both cut taxes on the wealthy and go to war at the same time. Cheney told him that "deficits don't matter." Also MIA are former counterterrorism directors Rand Beers and Richard Clarke, both of whom became horrified by Bush's counterproductive terrorism policies.)
11. George Bush himself signed an order permitting the US military to arrest Jose Padilla, an American citizen, in Chicago, and hold him indefinitely without access to the American legal system. The Supreme Court later ruled, more or less, "What the hell are you doing?" Bush has said jokingly, "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." The Supreme Court also forced the Bush administration provide Yaser Hamdi access to the American legal system. Hamdi, they argued to the Supreme Court, could legally be held indefinitely for the length of the war on terror, even if it was like "the 100 Days War." When the Bush administration lost its case, it simply released Hamdi rather than trying him. He is now free. In the case of Jose Padilla, the Bush administration said he was going to detonate a "dirty bomb." It later said he was only a "scout." Ashcroft said a dirty bomb "spreads radioactive material that is highly toxic to humans and can cause mass death and injury." The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, on the other hand, says a dirty bomb is "in no way similar to a nuclear weapon...not...a Weapon of Mass Destruction but rather...a Weapon of Mass Disruption." It says, "The main purpose of a dirty bomb is to frighten people and make buildings or land unusable for a long period of time," and that it is unlikely to even "cause severe illness from exposure to radiation."
12. Terrible planning going into Iraq. Not only did we not get people on our side, but we botched the occupation-phase planning almost entirely. We didn't use enough troops. We didn't provide the troops the proper equipment. We had no contingency plan for keeping troops a duration of time that many reasonable analysts predicted they would need to stay -- thus we had to overextend them, in some cases more than once. Bush kept flip-flopping on his planning. He said he'd exhaust all non-military options, then he didn't, even when inspections were working. He said he wouldn't give it to the UN, then he did. He said he wouldn't use the war to dole out contracts to his favorite people, then he did (both countries and companies). He gave the planning to Jay Garner, who totally botched it. Then he gave it to Paul Bremer, who was over his head. Then he finally relented, much too late, and gave it to the UN. Just a complete disaster, all around.
p.s. Plenty more where that came from, but this is probably enough...for now...
"The 100 Days War."
No, uh, make that "the 100 Years War."
100 Days -- notsobad.