The Bush War

Editorial

11 September 2006

GEORGE Bush and his supporters will no doubt mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 by stressing to the American people that, since that horrible day, there has not been a single terrorist attack on US soil. Though that is undeniably true, it is, however, only half the picture. Americans will also wake up today to be told that the threat of terrorism against them remains, as one of countless reports on the anniversary put it, “chillingly lethal,” and despite a government overhaul and more than $250 billion spent to bolster security on airlines, at borders and in seaports, officials predict another massive attack; there are no “ifs” — only when.

Five years have passed since 9/11. But there is still a need to look into the real reason Bush launched an “all-out war on terror” without defining “terror” or determining the method and duration of the war. Nor was much done about what is perhaps the most important aspect of the entire issue: eradicating the root causes of terror. The events of 9/11 coincided with an American leadership inspired and shaped by neoconservatives who still form the current administration. Their invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 and Israel’s recent war on Lebanon were mere episodes in the endless “global war on terror.” But there is precious little in common between the wars fought so far and the actual eradication of terror.

And as anybody with only limited knowledge of the situation can tell you, conventional military means will not succeed against youths who are prepared to sacrifice their lives as long as their death acquires meaning by causing harm to New York, Madrid, Bali, London and just about anywhere else. Aircraft carriers, missile bombardment, landing forces, and occupying troops don’t stand a chance against this phenomenon. There is no place to take this youth on, no battle theater where standing armies can clash, nor even in the more vague arena of guerrilla warfare. But Americans are bent on engaging the enemy in combat, and have ended up fighting countries that have no relationship with terrorism and may have themselves been victims of it. Iraq is the finest example and Americans have found themselves succeeding in only weakening national governments and causing the very phenomenon which they had allegedly set out to destroy to proliferate and take root in areas where it had never previously existed.

Following the 9/11 attacks, Bush told the world that everything had changed. But had it really? At the outset of his global campaign, Bush talked of “Crusades,” then retracted the word, claiming it was a mere slip of the tongue. But then more recently, he used another emotive expression — “Islamic fascism.” Five years of war haven’t changed his mind. His “global war on terror” is simply an imperial war to subjugate whatever part of the world is in the “against-America camp” — and a sizeable portion of this anti-US population is in the Middle East. Today, exactly five years on, there is still international turmoil, but this turbulence must not be blamed solely on the murderous perpetrators of 9/11.