The War on Terror: A Progress Report on the First Five Years

As the fifth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, we've recently learned from President Bush and his party that we are "safer, but not safe" and that "because we are fighting the terrorists over there (Iraq?), we don't have to fight them here." In Iraq, our armed forces "will stand down when the Iraqis stand up." What do all of these phrases have in common? An expression of incompletion, couched in terms to make the administration's failures seem defensible as ongoing solutions.

I use the word "failures" because that is what I believe has and continues to occur. On the evening of September 20, 2001, President Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and the nation, setting forth a path for America in this new age. A common refrain in the speech is that Americans "will come together" to solve the problems and that in fighting for our principles "our first responsibility is to live by them." I remember that fantastic, touching speech (full text here). The state of the union was indeed strong. However, since that day, the union has become increasingly weaker as the Bush administration has wasted trillions of dollars waging ill-conceived and, in one case, unjustified, wars while creating a bumbling behemoth of a bureaucracy in the Department of Homeland Security that failed miserably in its only true test since 9/11, Hurricane Katrina. The surge in international support following 9/11 has been squandered by Bush's war of aggression in Iraq, our subsequent occupation of Iraq, the seizure of its resources and the civil war it has incited there.

As 9/11/06 approaches, debate now rages on whether America is safer today than on 9/11/01. On the domestic front, the Department of Homeland Security has spent over $100 billion since 2003, with an FY 06 budget of $40 billion. While billions of these dollars have been spent to "organize" our national security plan, only a few perfunctory actions have actually been undertaken to secure our country. While DHS Director Michael Chertoff is busy blaming (the Republican-controlled) Congress for the inaction on security measures, his Department of Homeland Security, apparently in the spirit of the Coalition Provisional Authority, recklessly doles out billions of dollars, allowing state governments and contractors to fleece the American taxpayer under the banner of homeland security.

And it's not just our money that's been stolen, but our civil liberties as well. The Terrorist Surveillance Program is a gross violation of FISA act that, along with the IV Amendment to our Constitution, prevents surveillance of individuals resident in the United States without a warrant. The public furor over this program, ignited by the New York Times disclosure of it, provoked circus-like hearings conducted by the Republican Senate. In the most comic, albeit disgusting, moment, Alberto Gonzalez, Attorney General of the United States, was not required to swear to his testimony before this kangaroo court. When Democrats challenged that notion, Chairman Specter was finally forced to take a vote on whether to require Gonzalez to be sworn. Only a few of the Republican committee members were present, so Specter and other senators claimed to have voting proxies for those members, thus assuring the defeat of the motion. When Wisconsin Senator Feingold requested to see the proxies, Specter cancelled the vote and commenced the hearing without Gonzalez being sworn. To date, the Terrorist Surveillance Program continues despite portions of it being adjudged unconstitutional by a federal district court in Michigan, and has expanded into telecommunications companies disclosing information on your phone records, e-mail and internet searches to the National Security Agency.

These actions by the Bush administration amount to gross failures of the plan set forth in Bush's September 20, 2001, speech. If we had known five years ago that the Bush war on terror would be so ineptly run and the extent to which it would damage, perhaps irreparably, the social, political and legal fabric of this country, would we have allowed it happen? Of course not, and it appears the citizens of this country are beginning to understand the consequences. Yet the Bush administration, having squandered both international and domestic support for our actions abroad, drones on, defying laws, wildly spending our country into further debt while continuing to spout half-truths in an effort to bolster the meritless claim that their grand plan for our security is succeeding. The Bush administration's prosecution of the war on terror hasn't been a principled fight to bring the light of freedom to the world. Quite to the contrary, it's evolved into an undefined and seemingly endless war of aggression against oil-bearing nations and an assault on the liberty of the world's people through illegal searches and torture. Five years after 9/11, the credibility of the Bush administration has vanished, with the truth of their assertions lying only in their widespread and unending repetition.

What's most troubling though, and I've tried to define in the title of this post, is that despite the incompetence, negligence and malfeasance of the Bush administration, the war on terror will go on for at least the duration of the Bush presidency. Even if Democrats are able to wrest control of Congress, there is no indication that a President who has brazenly sought to expand executive power will voluntarily surrender his new powers to Congress. By evoking images of 9/11 and the fear it has instilled in the American public, the Bush administration has ensured that any future effort by Congress to limit funding for the war on terror or Department of Homeland Security would be met with calls of "weakness, appeasement and surrender." The average American, after five years of intense conditioning, would knee-jerk in the same way. But it's exactly that kind of thinking that will ensure that the war on terror lives on long beyond its usefulness.

Allowing the war on terror to continue with no discernible end in sight paints a dark future for our country. What is the logical end of the war on terror as currently structured? There is no leader of the forces of terror. Killing bin Laden might be a symbolic accomplishment, but nothing more. Can anyone seriously believe that the American occupation of Iran or Syria would produce a "democracy" any more likely to succeed than our currently floundering efforts in Iraq? If not, then what conceivable reason would we have to attack them? Current U.S. intelligence estimates assert that Iran will not have the capacity to build a nuclear weapon for at least ten years. Moreover, the Iranian President has been knocking on Bush's door for the last five months, seeking a dialogue on the nuclear issue to avert a crisis. If the U.S. relies on what to this point have been baseless assertions by Bush that Iran and Syria support Hezbollah to wage war on the countries, neither the world nor the American public should follow without extensive and verifiable documentation of that connection and a justification of the rationale that Hezbollah threatens the United States.

As long as America, whether under Bush or not, continues to engage in unjustified wars for resources and heedlessly supports Israel to the exclusion of the democratically elected Islamic elements in Palestine and Lebanon, there will always be villains to be manufactured and crusades to be completed. By continuing to misrepresent to the world that America is still under attack five years after 9/11, the Bush administration wastes our money, erodes the nation's standing and authority internationally, while needlessly endangering the country's civilians and soldiers alike.