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THREE BUSH BLUNDERS Tod Landis July 29, 2003 (This is a slightly revised version of an essay I first wrote July 29, 2003). About a week before President Bush's inauguration, President Bush and Condoleezza Rice were given a security briefing by George Tenet, the CIA director. Tenet listed three security threats he thought should be given a priority: bin Laden, the proliferation of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and increased Chinese military power. Tenet correctly identified bin Laden as an "immediate", "tremendous threat" [1]. While Congress slept, Bush took a series of actions, benefiting the corporations who backed him, but which, in each case, were nearly the exact opposite of what he should have done. Here's a recap. bin Laden The Bush administration took action to counter the bin Laden threat, but it was the wrong action. As Bob Woodward reported in his book Bush At War, Bush chose to step up the undeclared war against Afghanistan that the US had been waging since 1998, a war already costing the US several million dollars a year. [2]. In 1998 the US had fired missiles into Sudan and Afghanistan. In July, 2001, the National Security Council, discussed a plan for eliminating al Qaeda. On September 4, 2001, one week before the World Trade Center attacks, a committee within the NSC settled on a plan to spend $125-200 million on a covert war in Afghanistan, supporting the Northern Alliance, with the goal of overthrowing the Afghanistan government. [3] The Northern Alliance is a coalition of warlords, many with ties to Russia and Iran, some who are thugs engaged in drug trafficking, sex slavery rings, and torture. Northern Alliance warlords once massacred 2,000 Taliban POWs at Mazar Y Sharif. As Ahmed Rashid reports in Taliban, "The manner of their death was horrendous"[4]. While the administration threw resources into this covert activity, the FBI neglected to follow up on investigative leads that might have exposed the 9/11 plot. Part of the problem was a lack of resources. There were translators for example, that the FBI Director requested, but did not receive. We can see that the funds were going to covert activity, when they should have been spent on investigative work. There was a profit motive behind the covert activity, and the overt war that followed. A replacement government, more friendly to the oil companies, will benefit corporations seeking to tap oil and natural gas reserves in Central Asia. The idea that we can attack countries without being attacked back, or triggering "blowback" of another kind, is clearly dangerous and simply wrong. Setting aside those considerations, it is wrong to kill for profit. Proliferation of WMDs The Bush administration took action to prevent the proliferation of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, or "Weapons of Mass Destruction" by waging war with Iraq. That war may have had exactly the reverse effect. As Dr. Helen Caldicott wrote on www.nuclearpolicy.org: The
Bush Administration's foreign policy doctrine of pre-emption against
the threat and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has
appeared to push countries into building up their own nuclear weapons
program as deterrence against possible military action by the United
States, i.e. North Korea's current nuclear weapons production.
Worse, the US is teaching the rest of the world that cooperating with
nuclear weapons inspection team may be unwise, because inttelligence
gathered by the team may later be used to wage war. The evidence is mounting, as oil and other natural resources in Iraq are privatized, that war with Iraq was fought to benefit the corporations who backed the Bush administration, and not with the sincere purpose of eliminating WMDs. Meanwhile, the real threat posed by the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other WMDs is not being addressed. Chinese Military Power China is spending more on its military, and it can, if chooses, spend still more. It has a powerhouse economy, mainly because of the favorable balance of trade with the US. Contrast this with our half trillion dollar trade deficit. Given concerns about Chinese power, it is insane to pursue trade policies which result in strengthening the Chinese economy at the expense of the US economy, but that is what is occuring. Putting aside the fact that the US accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia, there are two main points of friction in the American relationship with the Chinese: the Taiwan question and Japan's rearmament. The Bush administration recently called upon Japan to send 1000 troops Iraq, to aid with the occupation, there. That request, controversial in Japan, will likely trigger additional Japanese military spending, and in turn, trigger further Chinese military spending. Meanwhile, the Chinese economy booms. Notes , [1] Bush At War by Bob Woodward, p.34 [2] Same, p. 40 [3] Same, p. 34-36 [4] p. 63, Taliban, by Ahmed Rashid, 2001, Yale University Press [5] Bush At War Other links: More BLOG entries Who will pay for these wars?, July 4, 2003 End the Iraq War, July 6, 2003 Repeal the Patriot Act, July 4, 2003 |