Matthew McKenna
The War on Terror has been destructive, illegal, and above all, immoral. The near twenty year endeavor has also been an incredibly stupid one. Here we analyze three statements, made by our most powerful officials, that are illustrative of the larger idiocy of this war.
The Best and the Brightest Strike Again
The products of elite schools, the esteemed think tanks, the well-connected, and the well-funded have done us all a favor and made it abundantly evident that these credentials mean absolutely nothing when it comes to creating foreign policy. Although their counterparts of the 1960s that had started and lost the Vietnam War should have already discredited their type, the War on Terror now affirms their idiocy. The modern Washington DC establishment, “the blob”, the DC insiders, have a track record in war similar to Charlie Brown’s record of successfully kicking the football. Leaving aside the obvious opportunistic entities that see war as an endeavor on its own to be pursued in their self interest, the War on Terror is a spectacular failure by nearly every measurable statistic. We will not exhaust that failure here, but in short, it has destabilized formerly stable nations, further destroyed the American reputation, grown terror groups exponentially, wasted trillions of dollars, killed millions of people, displaced many millions more, and worst of all, it has no parameters of time and space. That last point transitions nicely to the lighter side of this dark comedy. Again, leaving aside the craven (but very real) actors that see forever war as a healthy status quo, the War on Terror, was always going to be a failing forever war. It was a war on a tactic. This is a tactic that has always been developed out of political opposition. Most recently, it grew out of very earthly grievances regarding violence toward the innocent civilians of the Arab world. This war was always going to create more resentment, more terror, and was of course bound to fail on its own terms. It is as if the United States declared a war on fire and went to battle the global infernos with gasoline.
Since we are discussing war, I am obliged to bring up the Nuremberg trials that served as the venue for bringing to justice (the losing) war criminals of World War II. At this trial, several principles were adopted that would, in theory, guide future prosecutions of grave international crimes. These principles dictate that the initiation of an aggressive war is the supreme international crime. The reasoning behind this classification is because all crimes that occur within a war, subsequently, all owe their origins to the preceding crime of aggressive war. By this standard, of course, many US officials ought to be prosecuted for this exact transgression for their roles in the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. However, moving away from the litigious aspect of the endeavor, (as US officials aren’t held to account anyway), I believe we can apply the same Nuremberg logic to the idiocy of the war. The supreme crime of idiocy was the initiation of the War on Terror. The stupidity of this crime echoes in the subdivisions of the larger imbecilic act and are also worth exploring, as they are microcosms of the illogicality of US foreign policy. To that end, let’s examine three gems of completely moronic statements made over the course of this larger commission of idiocy.
“They hate our freedoms.”- George W. Bush
It would be easy to point to the lack of experience that (any) US president has had in dealing with a deadly attack on the homeland. These are extraordinarily rare events and are ones that few American heads of state have had to explain to the citizenry. Still, in terms of stupidity, George W. Bush came out swinging for the fences and connected with his explanation for the attacks of September 11th. According to W., in establishing a new doctrine for war that had never been used before, Al Qaeda attacked the United States not out of geopolitical concern, self defense, or retribution, but out of jealousy. In a speech given shortly after the September 11th attacks, the president spoke with a straight face to the American people and claimed, ”They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble, and disagree with each other.” Here he was, George W. Bush, president of the most powerful empire in human existence, playing the role of the global adolescent brat. He was doing the political equivalent of claiming that everyone hates the US only because they are, like, totally jealous of us. The fact that the “hatred of our freedom” explanation was allowed to pass by even for a second without interruption from someone in the room, and then permitted to amplify across American airwaves unchecked, testifies to a collective September 11th induced psychological trauma of the American people.
Bin Laden Dropping Truth Bombs
The question that should have been immediately raised, was not raised publicly until three years later, and it was asked by the very perpetrator of the attacks. In 2004, former ally turned sworn enemy of the United States, Osama Bin Laden, articulated the stupidity of George Bush’s explanations for the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. On the Arab language network, Al Jazeera, the mass murdering extremist proved himself to be the epitome of rational decision making when compared to the president of the United States. Bin laden responded to the ”They hate our freedoms” statement with what should have been the first response of anyone who heard that line. “Contrary to what [President George W.] Bush says and claims – that we hate freedom – let him tell us then, “Why did we not attack Sweden?” While the Saudi dissident identified the Nordic nation as the epitome of freedom, he certainly could have identified dozens of other nations in which the citizens live objectively more free than the people of the United States. However, in 2004, only 3 years removed from the attacks, the American mind was in no mood for that kind of self-reflection.
The American Commitment to Freedom
Of course, if the populace was paying close attention, the very same freedom hating allegation could have been leveled at the Bush administration. That is to say, Bush was more disdainful of American liberty than Bin Laden was. Excluding the economic freedom that was given in spades to the oligarchs, it would be hard to characterize the Bush administration as one that valued freedom. After all, this was an administration whose very existence was the result of the circumstances of contested elections, voter disenfranchisement, and political nepotism in the 2000 election. The love for freedom was even less evident after the September 11th attacks with the passage of the Patriot Act which instituted a new system of government intrusion into the private lives of the citizenry. Warrantless surveillance of Americans went from an aspirational goal to policy. The press was blatantly manipulated and weaponized against the American people to manufacture consent for the imperial agenda that would eventually lead to the destruction of Iraq. Press freedom further insulted as edicts were maintained that censored the display of coffins of Americans killed in doomed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Americans would not have to be challenged by understanding the full consequences of their government’s actions. Even media outlets that momentarily stepped out of their role of national security state stenographer, as the New York Times’ James Risen did in 2004, were strong armed into delaying potentially groundbreaking stories. The paper of record caved to Bush administration demands to delay Risen’s damning expose of domestic surveillance until after the Bush- Kerry election. Bush’s concept of freedom of the press seemed inexorably tied to obedience to his rapidly expanding and intrusive national security state.
Torture, indefinite detention, extraordinary rendition, and drone assassination all became part of policy under Bush and his affinity for freedom. Bin Laden called out this obvious hypocrisy in that same 2004 interview, speaking on Bush and his alleged concern about freedom “he moved the tyranny and suppression of freedom to his own country, and they called it the Patriot Act.”
By indicating that this suppression had been “moved” by Bush to the United States, Bin Laden was doing somewhat of a callback to his previous statements. In the 1996 fatwa and his 1997 CNN interview, Bin Laden has already made abundantly clear his reasoning for war with the United States. Among other grievances, one of these was the US perpetual patronage of the decidedly undemocratic monarchies and military dictatorships of the Middle East. He was referring to the US supported royal families in Jordan, United Arab Emirates and of course Saudi Arabia. He also was likely expressing distaste for the United States continued patronage of general Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Not once in the collective greatest hits from his public appearances from 1996 to his death in 2011, did the Al Qaeda leader reference freedom as an attributive reason for his violence. What was mentioned were other more tangible grievances including the aforementioned support for repressive Arab states. Support for Israeli subjugation of Arabs in Gaza and Lebanon, a continued campaign of deadly deprivation of Iraqi children through sanctions, and first and foremost, the occupation of the most holy place in Islam. These grievances were all based on real world transgressions of the United States against the Muslim world. Bin Laden’s wanton slaughter of civilians in response to these grievances was unjustifiable, horrific, and thus needed no manufactured explanation. The only purpose of the “They hate our freedoms” narrative was to pursue a path forward absent of reflection or global empathy.
“Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn’t exist.” – Donald Rumsfeld
While Bush engaged in projection with his allegation against the freedom haters of the Arab world, his secretary of defense preferred to speak in riddles to obfuscate the reality of his crimes. In a display of logic that would frighten any child not totally convinced of the absence of monsters under their bed, Rummy stated, “Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn’t exist.” This asinine statement that he further explained as “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” was made with regards to Saddam Hussein’s phantom weapons of mass destruction. This was a narrative pursued in search of the elusive justification for the long desired war on Iraq. It is helpful to ask how else this kind of “logic” could be applied. There is, of course, the aforementioned frightened child for whom Rumsfeld’s wisdom would have left unable to sleep. What about the Loch Ness Monster? We do not have specific evidence of the famous Scottish beast NOT existing, therefore he is likely just hiding in the cold murky waters of the Scottish Highlands, and the search should continue at great expense to the Scottish taxpayer.
“I Want to Believe” – X-Files
Of course, continuing to believe in the aforementioned hypothetical existences may be silly, but the delusions are relatively benign in their outcomes. Such was not the case with Rummy’s assertion regarding Saddam Hussein’s elusive WMDs. The lead justifications for a US war on Iraq relied on two allegations that both proved to be woefully deficient in factual basis. One of these was the alleged ties between Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda terror organization; an absurd claim on its face due to the Salafi organization’s disdain for the secular dictator. The second allegation was about Hussein’s possession of WMDs. This was a narrative that was manipulated and made to be more believable through a combination of media malpractice, cherry picked evidence, lies of omission, and outright fabrications. Rumsfeld played a leading role in this deceit, and his statement regarding the perverted view of the meaning of the absence of such weapons is emblematic of the entire caper.
A Plan in Search for a Reason
The war in Iraq was always policy looking for a justification. The decision to invade Iraq had been made and the reasoning was being fixed around it. This much was affirmed by the British based Downing Street Memos, but the evidence had already been abundant. Plans to invade and overthrow the Baathist government had been brought into existence years earlier during the Clinton presidency. This was made most abundantly clear in the agendas drafted by a nefarious think tank known as the Project for a New American Century. One of the signatures to the war mongering organization’s statement of principles was none other then secretary of defense-to-be, Donald Rumsfeld. The September 11th attacks became the “catastrophic and catalyzing” event that the neoconservatives knew would be necessary to institute their hegemonic policies on the Middle East. Indeed, as downtown Manhattan burned in the inferno sparked by the attacks conducted by Saddam’s enemies in Al Qaeda, Rumsfeld and his subordinates were already giddy with excitement about the prospect to capitalize on such a tragedy. Literally on September 11th, Rumsfeld was already at work attempting to bring his clique’s agenda into fruition when he told an aide, “Best info fast. Judge whether good enough [to] hit SH [Saddam Hussein] @ same time. Not only UBL.” Rumsfeld’s boss, in the person of George Bush, was also keen to turn the tragedy in his favor when he told counter terror expert Richard Clarke to find “any shred” of evidence of Hussein’s involvement. This came after being pressed by the counter terror czar that the attacks were clearly done by Al Qaeda and not Iraq. General Wesley Clark also affirmed the hyper bellicose and delusional attitude present in Rumsfeld’s department in fall of 2001 when he was interviewed by Amy Goodman of “Democracy Now” in 2007. One of Rumsfeld’s subordinates relayed that “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” When Clark was perplexed by the illogical nature of such a decision, the defense department employee could not offer a single explanation with regards to Iraq’s connection to September 11th attacks. When Clark visited the Pentagon weeks later, a Rumsfeld aide informed him of the devolution of the situation, referencing a memo that called for the for invasion of seven countries in the following five years, “Starting with Iraq and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off, Iran.” Incompetence proved to be the biggest obstacle to pulling off this aspirational goal entirely, but four of the seven countries have been destroyed or destabilized in due in great part due to US actions. In terms of his relationship with his boss, it is unclear if it was Bush or Rumsfeld or other actors (Cheney) that drove the agenda forward. It is clear that Bush himself was moving with ambition toward war. Within months after the tragedy, Bush pressured Condoleezza Rice and Rumsfeld to draw up plans for the war on Iraq. In the case of Rumsfeld, Bush demanded that the plans be “kept secret.” In other words, the search for “evidence that something exists” was merely a tool used to promote an agenda to which Rummy and his compatriots had long since dedicated themselves.
Don’t Blame Idiocy When Sociopathy is More Obvious
In spite of the idiocy of his statement, Rumsfeld is not an idiot, he is a sociopath. It was well understood in the Bush administration that Iraq had rid itself of WMDs long before the 2003 invasion. In the year before September 11th 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and Rumsfeld himself had all dismissed the existence and threat of Iraq’s possession of WMDs prior to the 9/11 attacks. That’s right, seven months before 9/11, the man who would go on to prosecute this war on Iraq from the highest position of the Pentagon expressed his doubt of the threat of Iraq’s weapons to Fox News’ Tony Snow. The Sec Def stated that “Iraq is probably not a nuclear threat at the present time.” Additionally, the United States had the testimony of Saddam Hussein’s son in law, Hussein Kamel from years earlier, confirming the “evidence doesn’t exist.” The UN weapons inspectors also affirmed this “evidence that something does not exist” and were ignored. Indeed, Rumsfeld and the Bush administration at large also knew this “absence” of weapons to be true, and to that end, took desperate measures to propagate the false charge. This included adopting obviously false testimony from Iraqi dissident (“Curveball”) with an obvious agenda to depose Hussein. This testimony (later presented by Colin Powell to the UN) alleged that Iraq had a supply of biological weapons. Rumsfeld and his buddies also resorted to more extreme tactics to sell the lie. This included the threatening of Jose Bustani, head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, for his succeeding negotiations with Iraq to allow unannounced visits by inspectors, a move sure to further prove the “evidence of absence” of the weapons. There was even a Hail Mary attempt to sell narrative of the Al Qaeda connection and the WMD myth in a package through outright torture. Al Qaeda member, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was tortured into giving a false confession that Iraq had trained his organization in the use of chemical and biological weapons. It was a bit of a combo platter in terms of ridiculous allegations molded together. The confession was later recanted, but that fact wasn’t going to dampen Rummy’s appetite for war.
But What if it Was All True?
There is a legitimate philosophical debate that could be had about why even Iraq’s theoretical possession of such weapons would justify war to first place. Hussein’s very real possession of the weapons in the 1980’s did not bother the United States at the time. It was Rumsfeld that Ronald Reagan employed as a special envoy to the Middle East, that enjoyed a friendly meeting with Saddam. As Iraq waged a devastating campaign on its neighbor Iran and its own citizens, the Reagan administration was more than willing to sell Hussein weapons, (even biological and chemical weapons), provide his army with intelligence, and even cover for Iraq at the UN. At Saddam’s most brutal points of his dictatorship, he had the total backing of the United States and Rumsfeld. If the issue was WMD’s, the time to raise it was in the 1980’s, not 20 years later when Iraq was severely weakened by genocidal sanctions and presented no threat to its regional neighbors, much less the United States. There is also the perpetual hypocrisy that exists around the question of why it is that Iraq would not be permitted to have chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons when other countries possessed them without US harassment. There really is not a logical reason for why Iraq would not hypothetically be allowed to have chemical weapons, while the United States possessed them even after its use of napalm, white phosphorus, and Agent Orange in Vietnam. There is no intellectual consistency in proclaiming that Iraq cannot develop a nuclear weapon when Israel did so in secret, and the United States seems to have no issue with the deception. It may have been best for Iraq had they held onto their weapons, rendering Rumsfeld’s cynical allegations correct. After all, nations that possess nuclear weapons tend to do far better in deterrence of US aggression than those that do not (see Iraq, Libya.) Donnie was a man with an agenda. This was an agenda that he was determined to put forward even in the face of opposition from present evidence and prior revelations. Due to his actions, we now all possess evidence of the absence of a conscience or sense of empathy in this man. Rummy might argue that absence of evidence does not prove his moral deficiency, but he would be wrong.
“We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”- Barack Obama
Those of us who are not lawyers or fluent in legalese are often at a disadvantage when engaging litigiously. Due to this, on behalf of all of us who lack a Juris Doctorate, I want to thank president Obama for simplifying the field for us. It turns out, that according with to the statements made by former constitutional lawyer turned president, the crimes committed in the past do not need to be prosecuted. When speaking of the Bush administration’s grave transgressions and the possibility of prosecution, he stated, “We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.” This logic apparently only applies to the most heinous violations of international law and war crimes. Obama was more than willing (more than any previous president) to ruthlessly prosecute whistleblowers for revealing grave US government transgressions against civilians in the United States and the Arab world. Contrarily, when it came to prosecuting his predecessor for mild crimes like torture, illegal invasions, fabricating evidence to manufacture consent for a war, Obama was quite forgiving. Seeing as the Bush administration had already assured that it would never face any judgement from the International Criminal Court through its refusal to ratify it, and even threatening military action against it, it was really up to US leaders to hold their own accountable once Bush left office. Obama proved himself horrifically unfit for such a task. As president elect, he made the aforementioned proclamation regarding “not looking backwards” apparently only concerned with future crimes. By doing so, he affirmed an executive privilege that he would later benefit from that even the greatest criminal acts (war crimes) would be brushed aside as mere disagreements. In one holistically illogical statement, the 44th president assured that he and future presidents would likely remain immune from any accountability for their actions.
Why Didn’t I Think of That?
There are many millions of nonviolent offenders that were formerly, or remain presently, incarcerated that would really benefit from such a logic as Obama put forward. In fact, let’s extend from the most sympathetic cases and consider ALL purported criminals being granted the luxury of a judge and jury adopting the stance that “We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.” It certainly would rapidly resolve the plague of mass incarceration but such an endeavor was not Obama’s aim.
A Commitment to Principles… Sometimes
It is worth noting that Obama did often act in consistence with his policy of punishing future criminals. His drone assassination program that reigned terror on civilians of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen was aimed at removing “high value targets” from the “battlefield.” These targets included Al Qaeda members or loosely affiliated individuals. These lawless, unsupervised, secret, and extrajudicial assassinations were justified by Obama’s team as defense against potential future acts of terror against Americans. The families of the American citizens killed by Obama’s drones might find this idea perplexing, as it was the American borne drone terror that removed their loved ones from existence. Obama’s defense of his murder of American citizen, Anwar Al Awlaki, via drone strike in Yemen, was that the American was an “imminent threat” to the United States due to his popular internet presence and his potential to influence violent actors through his platform. If the standard that encouraging violence through a media platform rationalizes the use of hellfire missiles, then the American liberal class should prepare to have explosive ordinances detonating on the offices of the perpetually pro-war New York Times. This excuse of an “imminent threat” offered by the Obama administration is highly dubious, as the assassination program grants the military 60 days to carry out an execution after the president approved it. How imminent was this impending attack that an arrest warrant could not be issued and carried out by the then extremely (and criminally) cooperative Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh? This list of Americans killed by drones also included Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdurahman Al Awlaki in a separate incident. The teens earthly existence was eviscerated when an unmanned aerial vehicle fired a hellfire missile with him as he sat down to lunch with his friends at a cafe in Yemen. When his cousin had to identify the deceased boy by a piece of the back of his scalp, it is unlikely that he considered the drone program to be a tool used “against” terrorism. There are no justifications for killing the young boy, and the Obama administration has never provided one outside of expressing that he should have had a more “responsible father.” Some might adopt the logic that Abdurahman’s death was justified because he could have EVENTUALLY decided to seek retribution for his father’s murder, and thus become a threat to Americans. This brand of thinking, the justification for execution because of suspected pre-crime, would be consistent with the logic behind many other drone assassinations conducted under Obama and his successor. Fortunately for Obama and his affinity for punishing pre-crime, his administration assured that there would be plenty of potential terrorists to preemptively target in the future, with 90% of the victims of his own terror being unintended targets and civilians.
He Had Smaller Fish to Fry
Then again, in contrast to his refusal to prosecute Bush administration officials, Obama was really not at all opposed to “looking backwards.” He just avoided seeking justice when it meant targeting those with even marginal power. Obama looked “backwards” to prosecute (or attempt to) powerless whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou, and Edward Snowden for revealing droves of information about US war crimes, torture, and illegal domestic surveillance. He even extended his prosecution of whistleblowers to non-Americans, pressuring the Yemeni government to imprison journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye. This came as retribution for Shaye’s reporting of a US missile attack that killed 41 civilians, including 23 children. However, when it came to challenging anyone with real influence, Obama switched back to his policy of looking “forward.” He reduced the serious revelations of the CIA’s crimes in the much redacted “torture report,” as “We tortured some folks.” The administration limited criminal prosecutions to the employees who revealed such transgressions. Obama also did not pursue prosecutions of any high level CIA or Bush officials for their fabrication of evidence for their illegal war in Iraq, or for their violations of international law through the torture and indefinite detention that occurred at Guantanamo Bay prison.
Obama failed to look “backward” (or linearly?) when his own head of director of national intelligence, James Clapper perjured himself to the US congress when he denied accusations of domestic surveillance in 2013 (later to be revealed by Snowden.) Obama once again brought his 2009 declaration of not pursuing the crimes of the CIA under Bush into fruition when his CIA director, John Brennan attempted to thwart the senate inquiry into the aforementioned torture program. To this end, Brennan orchestrated surveillance on senate staffers who were investigating the program. Obama looked the other way, assuring that his administration’s hard inquiries into the past would only be directed at those that dare to reveal state crimes, rather than those that commit them. Obama’s statement could be effectively edited to say ”We have two polices at play. While we will look forward and punish people (mostly Arabs) for crimes yet to be committed, we will simultaneously ignore any and all previous crimes committed by the power elite of the United States.” There I fixed it for him. Consistency between words and action is important.
“Nobody” Comes With Some Qualifiers
Recently, the 44th president seems to be oscillating between his former commitment to not looking ”backward” into the crimes of the powerful and an apparent new desire to hold public officials accountable for their transgressions. On one end, his wife’s blossoming friendship with his criminal predecessor seems to indicate that the Obamas still seem committed to forgiving the unforgivable. On the other, there seems to have been a change of heart. At the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Obama said, with no sense of irony, that “No one is above the law.” This of course was referring to the many serious crimes of the Trump administration. Had Obama given an objective look at his own time as the commander and chief, he would have to conclude that in fact many people are above the law. In fact, Trump’s greatest crimes, the war on Yemen, the escalated civilian casualties in Afghanistan, and the assassination of a foreign official are all continuation of Obama’s own experience living above the law. Perhaps the best example of the continuity between the administrations is in the person of Trump’s CIA director, Gina Haspel. Had Obama pursued the torture investigation with a serious dedication to domestic and international law, Haspel would undoubtedly be deemed unfit for Trump’s appointment, if not outright incarcerated for her well documented role in the torture program. If precedent means anything in the American presidency, we should expect Trump to continue to live out his days and never have to reckon with his crimes, much the same as his predecessors do.
Maybe “Idiocy” Is Not the Right Word
While I have described these three statements as imbecilic and idiotic, really more than anything they are reminders of the craven nature of American leadership. In George W. Bush’s and Donald Rumsfeld’s lies about the reasons for the September 11th attacks and the subsequent march to war in Iraq, we saw a bloodlust and an imperial hubris. My hypothesis is that they both likely believed that the superior might of their country would obscure their dishonesty, and thus those moronic statements would never face much scrutiny. Obama’s immediate commitment to not prosecute the crimes of the most powerful, while simultaneously pursuing a policy of targeting those who revealed such crimes, evidenced a deep hypocrisy and cowardice. This failure to look “backward” will undoubtedly maintain the status quo, wherein powerful Americans remain exempt from both domestic and international law. Two decades of war have certainly been an idiotic pursuit, but I hope the history books use far harsher language to describe the endeavor.