In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
State-sponsored Arrogism
A cold war mind is a terrible thing to lose:
According to the classically "realist" mindset, only states can pose a significant threat to the national security of other states, because lesser actors simply do not have the capacity, sophistication and resources to do so. Hence, if terrorists suddenly became effective in destabilizing countries like Italy, they couldn't possibly have acted on their own. They must have had state sponsors, and it was only by tackling the state sponsors (in this case, the Soviet bloc), that you could root out the terrorists.
During the cold war, the paradigm of "state-sponsored terrorism" was useful, if not entirely correct. Most terrorists did receive help from states, and there were some links between disparate groups, although not to the extent that many in the United States believed. And some of the worst atrocities — like the 1983 attack on United States military headquarters in Beirut — were in fact carried out by groups that had been created by "rogue states" like Iran, Libya and Syria.
With the end of the cold war, however, things changed. While there was no longer a prime state sponsor for any "terror network," there was also no longer any need for one. It became easy to travel from one country to another. Money could be collected and transferred around the globe. Cell phones and the Internet made it possible to maintain tight control of an elusive group that could move its "headquarters" across continents. In fact, by the end of the decade, it seemed as if the model of state-sponsored terrorism had effectively been reversed: Al Qaeda was now in charge of a state — Afghanistan under the Taliban — rather than vice versa.
But the Washington hawks failed to see what was happening. The world around them had changed, but their paradigm hadn't. For them, states continued to be the only real movers and shakers in the international system, and any serious "strategic" threat to America's security could only come from an established nation.
Don't forget, folks, that when questioned in the second presidential debate about the wisdom of turning tail at the first sign of trouble in Beirut in 1983 -- under Dick Cheney's watch -- George Bush said it was "the right thing to do" and that he'd do it again. So there you have it. When it's not the Axis of Evil, run away, fuck it. Unless of course you own the country. Condoleezza Rice is a Sovietologist, and was chosen exactly for that. Cold warriors all around, missile shields, nukes and Armegeddon, all the good ol' bad ol' fears. Jihadist swarm? What's that? We don't care is the answer.
Now the cold warriors and statists are turning up the heat trying to discredit Clarke, whose only crime is pointing all this out. But mudslinger David Brooks, in his nonideological, nonpartisan cries for honest truth-telling (!), berates the truth teller with an illiberal smear:
But that wonky [i.e., pre-book/9-11 commission] Richard Clarke doesn't become a prime-time media sensation or sell hundreds of thousands of books. Because in this country, we speak only one language when it comes to public affairs, the language of partisan warfare. So out goes Mr. Wonk. Clarke turns himself into an anti-Bush attack machine, and we get a case study of how serious bipartisan concern gets turned into a week of civil war.
Yeah, at whose hands, buddy? This guy was hand-picked by Ronald Reagan and served under both Bushes. Not fair-minded enough for you, huh? Maybe he should go fight in a cave next to Osama bin Laden, that other traitor. Name calling is always an effective way to frame an argument. It helps too when the conservative Republican majority in every branch controls the terms of debate -- which is none at all; remember, the U.S. government is faith-based -- under God -- not rule oriented. When has George Bush ever made one single concession, or ever played by the rules, even once? And nothing a formerly unquestioning detractor says or does will convince supporters otherwise. But Brooks got one thing right: The whole intractable country has its heels dug in, and the rest of the world sees nothing but a colossus on the rampage. Why don't those in power understand the danger of that perception? Our carefully nurtured emnity at the hands of our political masters has made everyone blind and crazy. And dangerous to ourselves.
The cold war article goes on:
Sept. 11, 2001, brought about a quick re-orientation of foreign policy. What didn't change, however, was the state-centered mindset of the people who were in charge. According to Mr. Clarke, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld immediately suspected Saddam Hussein, and suggested military strikes against Iraq. While cooler heads prevailed at the time, and there was a real effort to track down and destroy the Qaeda network, there was also a reluctance to abandon the idea that terrorism had to be state-based. Hence the administration's insistence that there must be an "axis of evil" — a group of states critical in sustaining the terrorists. It was an attempt to reconcile the new, confusing reality with long-established paradigm of state sponsorship.
This is what happens when a young fogey surrounds himself with his daddy's fossil cabinet and winds the country back to 1950, while ideologically driven mass murderers grab ahold of the latest technology and stay ahead of the learning curve, adapting to and thwarting every new method devised to strike them. After all, what's a paradigm shift if you don't pay it anything?
- Michael 12:35 PM - [PermaLink] -
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