[Changleen]

Good opinion piece from the (centre-right) London Times.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-2047134,00.html

Bush and Blair have brilliantly done Bin Laden's work for him

Is Osama Bin Laden winning after all? Until recently I would have derided such a thought. How could a tinpot fanatic who is either dead or shut in some mountain hideout hold the world to ransom for five years? It would stretch the imagination of an Ian Fleming.

Now I am beginning to wonder. Not a day passes without some new sign of Bin Laden’s mesmeric grip on the governments of Britain and America. His deeds lie behind half the world’s headlines. British policy seems obsessed with one word: terrorism. The West is equivocating, writhing, slithering in precisely the direction most desired by its enemy. He must be roaring with delight.

On any objective measure, terrorism in the West is a trivial crime. True, New York and London saw outrages in 2001 and 2005 respectively. Both were the outcome of sloppy intelligence. Neither has been repeated, though of course they may be. Policing has improved and probably averted other attacks. But incidents genuinely attributable to Al-Qaeda rather than domestic grievances are comparable to the IRA and pro-Palestinian campaigns. Vigilance is important but only those with money in security have an interest in presenting Bin Laden as a cosmic threat.

Indeed if ever there were a case for collective restraint it is in response to terrorism. The word refers to a technique, usually a bomb, not an ideology. A bombing is an anarchic gesture calling for police and medical services. It becomes a political weapon only if publicised and answered with hysteria. A killing is so staged as to cause over-reaction, violent response, mass arrests and a decay of civilised values. Bin Laden’s intention in 2001 was to portray the West as scared, emotionally vulnerable, over-reactive, decadent and careless of liberal values. The West has done its damnedest to prove him right.

I distrust “basket” analysis but events do sometimes rush in a certain direction. Last week alone brought new revelations of torture by American troops in Iraq. British soldiers were filmed beating demonstrators in Basra. British ministers sought new powers of detention without trial, a national identity database and impediments on free speech. A sectarian leader became prime minister of Iraq and British marines were flown to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. The United Nations demanded the closure of Guantanamo as a torture camp. The European media indulged in an orgy of finger-pointing at Muslim religious sensitivity. Muslim extremists reacted on cue.

Were I Bin Laden I could not have dreamt that the spirit of 9/11 would be so vigorous five years on. I have western leaders still parroting my motto that “9/11 alters everything” and “the rules of the game are changed”. I have the Taliban resurgent, financed by Europe’s voracious demand for oil and opium. I have the Pentagon and Scotland Yard paying me the compliment of a “long war” of indefinite duration. My potency is said to require more defence spending than was needed to contain the might of the Soviet Union.

There is now a voluminous literature on the politics of fear and its distorting appeal for democratic leaders (this month alone, David Runciman’s admirable The Politics of Good Intentions and Peter Oborne’s The Use and Abuse of Terror). The 9/11 “changes everything” mantra began as an explanation of a national trauma and a plea for sympathy. It was hijacked to validate the latent authoritarianism of democratic leaders.

America asks the world to believe itself so threatened as to require the kidnappings of foreign citizens in foreign parts, detention without legal process, the curbing of free speech and derogation from all international law. It asks the world to believe that it must disregard the Geneva conventions and employ foreign dictators to help it to torture at random. It uses the same justification for occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. The world simply refuses to agree. Only cringeing Britain appeases such actions and calls them merely “anomalous”. There are madmen aplenty, but they do not constitute a war.

Even America’s most robust champions plead that this is all grotesquely counter-productive. What is frightening is not the evil of much American foreign policy at present but its stupidity; the damage it does to its own objectives. What was terrifying about Soviet power in the cold war was not its mega-tonnage but the incompetence of those controlling it.

America and Britain claim the right to invade foreign countries in defiance of international law. This requires at the very least a defensible moral superiority. Americans take this supremacy as read. Moral high ground comes with apple pie and the flag. Yet this supremacy, already questioned by many Americans at home, is in chronic disrepair abroad. Young Europeans and Asians no longer remember the second world war and do not see the world Washington’s way. Their belief in America’ s wealth is secure. Their belief in its values and their relevance to foreign countries is evaporating, blown away by relentless American belligerence. Last year’s BBC poll of 21 countries gave a majority that declared George Bush “a threat to world peace”.

The result is to cripple America’s effectiveness as diplomat and power broker. Take Iran. The emergence of any new nuclear power is alarming. Yet it was tolerated in Israel, India, Pakistan and Korea. Partly because of its isolation, Iran now seems certain to develop a nuclear potential. To respond by increasing that isolation and thus the paranoia of Iran’s turbulent and unstable rulers is daft. The sensible realpolitik must be to give Iran no reason to turn potential into actual power, let alone to want to use it.

I doubt if there is a world leader who would nominate America as best qualified to handle Iran in its present sensitive state. The war-mongering of the neocon ascendancy — the calls for bombing and the constant listing of targets — seems to mirror the fundamentalist mullahs behind President Ahmadinejad. American policy in the Middle East is so counter-productive as to be the problem, not the solution.

In desperation British and German leaders turned last week to the new “multi-polars”, Russia and China, for help with Tehran. This suggests a world moving towards new axes, seeking new leadership and distancing itself from American myopia. The spectacle is similar to the free world’s isolation of the Russian Comintern in the mid-20th century.

Such a recourse is fool’s gold. China and Russia are no more likely to exert sustained influence on the world stage than did Europe’s fragmented diplomacy over the past quarter century. Both have trade interests in Iran and much to gain as brokers of power in the region. Neither is a substitute for America. Neither carries the moral suasion of open and competitive democracy. Both face rumbling insurgencies on their frontiers. Yet the West turns to them in its hour of need. That is the measure of America’s collapse.

There never was a “terrorist threat” to western civilisation or democracy, only to western lives and property. The threat becomes systemic only when democracy loses its confidence and when its leaders are weak, as now. Terror attacks are for the police. For George Bush and Blair to demand a “long war” against Bin Laden and, by implication, a long suppression of civil liberty is ludicrous. Western civilisation is not some simpering weakling that cowers before a fanatic ’s might, pleading for leaders to protect it by all means, however illegal. It has been proof against Islamic expansionism since the 17th century. It is not at risk.

The American president and the British prime minister have spent half a decade exploiting Bin Laden for political ends, in thrall to their security/industrial complex. They have relied on terrifying their electorates with new and bloodcurdling threats, with what Runciman calls “spook politics”. But they will pass. The half-baked “message” laws passed by Britain’s limp parliament last week will fall in disuse. The vitality of British and American democracy has always been its ability to produce antibodies when truly challenged by an internal or external menace. The West will rediscover its self-belief and restore the liberalism, properly defined as freedom, that it once exemplified to the world.

Bin Laden is not going to win and never was. But Bush and Blair are giving him an astonishing run for his money.

 

[Transcend]

Clearly. The 2 countries he attacked have, in turn, created massive Islamic uprisings against the infidels.

Osama - game, set, match.

 

[valve bouncer]

I thought the quail were winning? Anyway we're killing more of "them" than they are of "us".That means we're winning, right? RIGHT?
I see the other day that Rumsfeld acknowledged that al-qaida was winning the propaganda war.

 

[MikeD]

That's wierd. I was scribbling these same thoughts in a steno book today...there was a bunch of 9/11 stuff on TV, and I got to thinking that they're getting a lot of bang out of their buck, and we're amplifying it instead of damping it. (Guess I've always thought that, ie my thoughts about how we hyped up the Cole incident to tragic proportions instead of trivializing it as weak...)

I mean, it's hard to look at 9/11 and diminish it...but hell, we've blown the gobsmack out of thousands of buildings ourselves; we do it and don't attach much significance to it.

I am always astonished by the enduring personal feelings I have while watching 9/11 footage, though...it's a visceral, visceral anger deep in the gut. And watching Palestineans celebrating continues the trend...you can really convince yourself that we're past the tipping point, and it has devolved into an entirely 'us vs. them' binary situation.

Still, I do not like hearing [what I perceive to be] weak, lame arguments from the US side about 'surprise attacks' and how we're entirely victims. I mean, we've been in a fight for many, many years...we just failed to acknowledge the enemy, by either eradication/nullification or significant political engagement/negotiation, until he kicked us in the balls, hard, a few times in a row.

MD

 

[Changleen]

I am always astonished by the enduring personal feelings I have while watching 9/11 footage, though...it's a visceral, visceral anger deep in the gut. And watching Palestineans celebrating continues the trend...you can really convince yourself that we're past the tipping point, and it has devolved into an entirely 'us vs. them' binary situation.

I think the public has been 'trained' to a degree to have this repeatable reaction. The footage after the event was quite pavlovian. Now they ring the bell, and you jump.

 

[fluff]

That's wierd. I was scribbling these same thoughts in a steno book today...there was a bunch of 9/11 stuff on TV, and I got to thinking that they're getting a lot of bang out of their buck, and we're amplifying it instead of damping it. (Guess I've always thought that, ie my thoughts about how we hyped up the Cole incident to tragic proportions instead of trivializing it as weak...)

I mean, it's hard to look at 9/11 and diminish it...but hell, we've blown the gobsmack out of thousands of buildings ourselves; we do it and don't attach much significance to it.

I am always astonished by the enduring personal feelings I have while watching 9/11 footage, though...it's a visceral, visceral anger deep in the gut. And watching Palestineans celebrating continues the trend...you can really convince yourself that we're past the tipping point, and it has devolved into an entirely 'us vs. them' binary situation.

Still, I do not like hearing [what I perceive to be] weak, lame arguments from the US side about 'surprise attacks' and how we're entirely victims. I mean, we've been in a fight for many, many years...we just failed to acknowledge the enemy, by either eradication/nullification or significant political engagement/negotiation, until he kicked us in the balls, hard, a few times in a row.

MD

That we are still talking about watching footage of 9/11 is in itself revealing. That the editing of such footage and juxtaposition of celebrating Palestinians is mentioned shows how the footage is manipulated.

Is there any other date that has been given such significance? It was a terrible act but there have been other terrible days in history, natural disasters have killed many more people several times since that day yet they lie forgotten whilst we keep open the wound of 9/11.

 

[MMike]

Freedom haters!

 

[Changleen]

Actually he's not totally winning. The French are invading too and they have awesome adverts!

http://www.us.areva.com/ad-campaign-film.php?quality=1

 

[DaveW]

Freedom haters!

Given the wildly differing opinions in this forum on who's responsible for freedom being lacking...... Could you define who you were talking about?
Bush or Osama?

 

[kinghami3]

Well, he's done a pretty good job of getting our freedoms taken away. Other than that, we still haven't caught him, and his terror network still exists in some form or other.

 

[MikeD]

That we are still talking about watching footage of 9/11 is in itself revealing. That the editing of such footage and juxtaposition of celebrating Palestinians is mentioned shows how the footage is manipulated.

What should you juxtapose with footage of Palestineans celebrating 9/11? The Daytona 500??

This wasn't a random montage of some happy and/or politically vocal people mixed with 9/11 footage-call it unfair to show (if you're an idiot), but these people were directly celebrating the fall of the towers and praising those who did it. Maybe the subtitles were misleading, but the signs they were holding, in bad English, sure weren't.

I'm not dumb enough to let even this sliver of footage color my opinion of an entire people, but the fact remains that a lot of people are happy that 9/11 killed lots of Americans. That makes me angry when I see it. (Yeah, I'm waiting for the Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitx/PNAC comments...)

MD

 

[fluff]

What should you juxtapose with footage of Palestineans celebrating 9/11? The Daytona 500??

This wasn't a random montage of some happy and/or politically vocal people mixed with 9/11 footage-call it unfair to show (if you're an idiot), but these people were directly celebrating the fall of the towers and praising those who did it. Maybe the subtitles were misleading, but the signs they were holding, in bad English, sure weren't.

I'm not dumb enough to let even this sliver of footage color my opinion of an entire people, but the fact remains that a lot of people are happy that 9/11 killed lots of Americans. That makes me angry when I see it. (Yeah, I'm waiting for the Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitx/PNAC comments...)

MD

How's about not juxtaposing footage of 9/11 with a minority of Palestinians celebrating? That it is juxtaposed is surely designed to whip up feeling, it does not need to be shown on a regular basis.

Perhaps you would like to see footage of dead and wounded Iraqi children juxtaposed with footage of George Bush standing under a banner reading mission accomplished?

 

[MikeD]

How's about not juxtaposing footage of 9/11 with a minority of Palestinians celebrating? That it is juxtaposed is surely designed to whip up feeling, it does not need to be shown on a regular basis.

Perhaps you would like to see footage of dead and wounded Iraqi children juxtaposed with footage of George Bush standing under a banner reading mission accomplished?

That's only completely analagous if the banner read, "Hooray for all the dead children!"

To some, it amounts to the same thing, I'm sure. And my whole point in my post was to show the subjectivity of all this, and to analyze how I and others are influenced by what we see.

 

[Changleen]

Let's try this (WTC7):

Now repeat to yourself in Dan Rather's voice: "Controlled Demolition"
"Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition"

 

[jimmydean]

I would say yes, he is winning. I think the "war on terror" has proven as effective as the "war on drugs". My favorite is still the "war on the homeless". I thnk we stand a good chance if beating them down.

 

[dan-o]

Let's try this (WTC7):

Now repeat to yourself in Dan Rather's voice: "Controlled Demolition"
"Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition" "Controlled Demolition"

That occured b/c some fat-ass came barreling down the stairwell and bowled over a load-bearing wall. Sheer coincidence.

 

[Changleen]

That occured b/c some fat-ass came barreling down the stairwell and bowled over a load-bearing wall. Sheer coincidence.

You mean he bowled over every load bearing wall at preciesly the same time? What a Fat Ass!

 

[Ciaran]

You mean he bowled over every load bearing wall at preciesly the same time? What a Fat Ass!

That's what happens when you have too much McDonalds. Which means that McDonalds are the ones really responsible for this.

 

[DaveW]

Sod it I still say blame Canhedia.... maybe a stampede of panicing mounties running for the exits did it?

 

[fluff]

I would say yes, he is winning. I think the "war on terror" has proven as effective as the "war on drugs". My favorite is still the "war on the homeless". I thnk we stand a good chance if beating them down.

Burn down their houses I say.