What Osama really wants...
Find a Conversation
| Thu, 07-22-2004 - 11:44am |
http://www.alternet.org/story/19102/
Taking on Imperial Hubris
By Ray McGovern, TomPaine.com. Posted June 30, 2004.
An anonymous CIA analyst has penned a new book that reveals how it's not hatred of our liberal democracy, but hatred of our policies that fuels terrorism.
The book has an apt title: Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. And the author spells out "why." We are losing because of the misguided war on Iraq and the upsurge in terrorism it has engendered.
Sadly, that conclusion was validated last week by the widespread, coordinated attacks by the Iraqi resistance – attacks that brought Vietnam to mind and, specifically, the country-wide "Tet" offensive by Communist forces in early 1968 that made Walter Cronkite and many other Americans realize we had all been badly misled into thinking that that war was winnable.
The final week of formal U.S. occupation of Iraq was a bad one. And the last thing the Bush administration needed was publication of the challenging judgments of a CIA analyst who devoted 17 years to tracking Al Qaeda and other terrorists. That analyst (let's call him Mike) wrote that the Iraqi adventure was "an unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat." He emphasized, "There is nothing that bin Laden could have hoped for more than the American invasion and occupation of Iraq."
Mike added that the United States has "waged two failed half-wars and, in doing so, left Afghanistan and Iraq seething with anti-U.S. sentiment, fertile grounds for the expansion of Al Qaeda and kindred groups."
Asked yesterday to comment on these biting charges, National Security assistant Condoleezza Rice refused on grounds that she did not know who Anonymous is. Did she not think to ask the CIA? If I had no trouble finding out, certainly she should have none.
Worse still for the administration, during an interview with NBC's Andrea Mitchell on June 23, Mike rubbed salt in White House wounds, subjecting to ridicule the dumbed-down bromide that what motivates bin Laden and his Muslim followers is hatred of our "freedom," our "democracy."
It's the Policy, Stupid!
"It's not hatred of us as a society, it's hatred of our policies," Mike insisted. He gave pride of place to the neuralgic issue of Israel. With candor not often heard on American television, he emphasized "It's very hard in this country to debate policy regarding Israel," adding that bin Laden's "genius" is his ability to exploit those U.S. policies most offensive to Muslims – "Our support for Israel, our presence on the Arabian peninsula, in Afghanistan and Iraq, our support for governments that Muslims believe oppress Muslims."
Asked how bin Laden views the war in Iraq specifically, Mike said bin Laden looks on it as proof of America's hostility toward Muslims; that America "is willing to attack any Muslim country that dares defy it; that it is willing to do almost anything to defend Israel. The war is certainly viewed as an action meant to assist the Israeli state. It is...a godsend for those Muslims who believe as bin Laden does."
Mike drove home this general message again yesterday on ABC's "This Week." He argued that it is U.S. policies that "drive the terrorism," and said failure to change those policies could mean decades of war. Only if the American people learn the truth can more effective policies be fashioned and implemented, he added.
What Sets Mike's Teeth on Edge
Here is where Mike's understated outrage shows through most clearly. The undercurrent in both interviews is that his analysis was offered well before the war but, as he told NBC, "senior bureaucrats in the intelligence community (were unwilling) to take the full truth, an unvarnished truth to the president...Whatever danger was posed by Saddam...was almost irrelevant...the boost that (the war) would give to Al Qaeda was easily seen."
Many experienced intelligence analysts will find it easy to identify with Mike's frustration. Put on your analyst hat for a few minutes and put yourself in his place. You have studied the issue with painstaking professionalism for 17 years and have acquired an expert view of the forces at play and the likely result of this or that policy. You warn, you warn, and you warn, as Mike did. And yet, because of wooden-headedness, stupidity or sycophancy, your superiors disregard your views and you are reduced to looking on helplessly as a calamitous course is set for the country.
Adding insult to injury, you hear Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confess, as he did on June 6 in Singapore, that "The troubling unknown is whether the extremists...are turning out newly trained terrorists faster than the United States can capture or kill them. It is quite clear to me that we do not have a coherent approach to this."
For self-confident analysts, all this creates powerful incentive to publish their own analysis. Once published there is always a chance it might have some resonance – perhaps even influence. In any event, they will be able to tell their grandchildren: Don't blame me; this is what I tried to get them to understand.
Many of us have been there, done that – including me during the '60s when I had a ringside seat at the crafting of U.S. policy toward Vietnam, while serving as principal CIA analyst of Soviet policy toward Vietnam and China. As U.S. forces got bogged down in the quagmire of Vietnam, senior officials in Washington began to indulge the wishful thought that the Soviets could be pressured or cajoled into "using their influence" to help the United States find a graceful way out – and that, until then, we had to "stay the course."
Though a relatively junior analyst at the time, I had already become convinced that the Soviet Union, in fact, had precious little influence with the Vietnamese Communists, mostly because it had sold them down the river at the Geneva Conference in 1954. If U.S. policymakers thought differently, it was important to send them our own analysis and try to dialogue with them. My conclusions, however, were thought to be unwelcome among policymakers, and so an earlier generation of "senior bureaucrats" refused to send those judgments downtown.
Going Public
In early 1967, I drafted an article in which I documented my case for the judgment that "the USSR's voice counts for little in Hanoi...when it comes to North Vietnam's conduct of the war." After receiving clearance from CIA's Publications Review Board (PRB), the article was published in the scholarly journal, "Problems of Communism." Like me, Anonymous Mike received PRB clearance with no changes required.
While understandable, speculation that clearance of Mike's book betokens an intent by senior CIA officials to take a swipe a those responsible for U.S. mistakes on Iraq and terrorism does not ring true. It is not as unusual as press reports suggest for a serving CIA official to publish a book, although Mike's was, because of the subject, bound to be highly controversial.
In my view, there is good news in the approval he obtained. It is a sign that there remain pockets of professionals at the CIA who are determined to honor their responsibility to protect First Amendment and other Constitutional rights of CIA employees.
I regret to admit that I was not certain this was still a sure thing, in view of the way senior CIA officials have played fast and loose with the Constitution on more consequential matters. Two summers ago, CIA Director George Tenet was a willing co-conspirator in the successful effort by the Bush administration to use counterfeit "intelligence" – including a known forgery – to deceive Congress into ceding its Constitutional power to declare war.
It is a safe assumption, though, that serious CIA analysts are glad to see Mike's book out on the street. His judgments are congruent with what substantive analysts there have been saying for years about Iraq and terrorism – without much sign that policymakers were listening. Perhaps Dr. Rice and other senior officials will get the book and read it. That might help someone like Secretary Rumsfeld, for example, who often refers to the fact that some key factors are "unknown" and/or "unknowable" and complains that he frequently encounters a lack of "situational awareness."
I was embarrassed for Rumsfeld when he was on ABC's "This Week" months ago and tried to field a question about how to reduce the number of terrorists. "How do you persuade people not to become suicide bombers; how do you reduce the number of people attracted to terrorism? No one knows how to reduce that," he complained.
Again, it's the policy. Well before the war in Iraq, CIA analysts provided an assessment intended to educate senior policymakers to the fact that "the forces fueling hatred of the U.S. and fueling Al Qaeda recruiting are not being addressed," and that "the underlying causes that drive terrorists will persist." The assessment cited a Gallup poll of almost 10,000 Muslims in nine countries in which respondents described the United States as "ruthless, aggressive, conceited, arrogant, easily provoked and biased." Again, that was before the attack on Iraq.
Too Little, Too Late?
Over the weekend former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke echoed many of the points made in Mike's book. Clarke said the invasion of Iraq was an "enormous mistake" that is costing untold lives, strengthening Al Qaeda, and breeding a new generation of terrorists. "The hatred that has been engendered by this invasion will last for generations," he added.
Which reminded me: With all due respect – and respect is indeed due the likes of Clarke, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil, and Anonymous Mike, who broke fraternity rules in speaking truth – why did they not do so before the war? One of the most depressing facts of the whole experience is the dearth of serving officials who were willing to speak out about the lies while it might have done some good.
Is it legitimate to ask Clarke, O'Neil, and Mike why they waited so long, when – just conceivably – their belated candor might have made a difference? Surely they did not choose to put their publishers preferences as to timing before the cost of "untold lives."
As for intelligence officers, the only ones to blow the whistle publicly before the war are Katherine Gunn of the United Kingdom and Australian intelligence officer Andrew Wilkie. It is a sad commentary that of the hundreds of U.S. intelligence officers with inside knowledge regarding the abuse of intelligence and other indignities regarding Iraq, not one – serving or retired – not one proved willing to risk his/her neck, career, friendships or serene retirement to stave off our country's first war of aggression.
Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years from the John F. Kennedy administration to that of George H. W. Bush.

Pages
Do you realize what you are saying? Think about it.
BTW, I totally agree with you on that one!
If so, who determines what is morally right or wrong? If not the citizens of a country? Prior to the civil war, the US was continually telling other countries to 'mind their own business' regarding slavery, saying that it had every right to do so, that it was a democracy, etc.. What if today, let's say some country in Europe said that 'you know what, we strongly believe that the death penalty is morally wrong, we should force the US to stop it'. Yes, I realize no country would do this because the US is more powerful. And you'd probably tell me that this is different, slavery and the death penalty aren't the same thing. You're right, but the arguments used to support both are the same. People in the south were claiming that blacks had no rights, that their owners had purchased them and were their property. They were claiming that it was NOT morally wrong. In fact just about every single slave owner was also going to church regularly and claiming to 'christian values'.
Don't get me wrong, the death penalty is definitely in a different category, but still there are many people around the world that believe that is totally morally wrong, and that too many innocent people die as a result.
The point is: who determines what is morally right or wrong, if not the citizens of a country? What is the criteria for other countries to be 'right' to interfere militarily in the affairs of another country? What evidence is suffient to support the actions? Don't we need an international body for that purpose?
The US did NOT get the support of the UN in the attack on Iraq.
Not sure what you mean. Do you mean should other countries have the right to have taken over the US and given blacks the rights we wouldn't? I think that point could be argued-we were most likely prepared to do so in South Africa had the economic pressure not been sufficient to effect change-but at the time I doubt there were any nations able to or who really even had much of a problem with out civil rights issues. I still fail to see what your point is-yes, the US had some way to go in granting civila and human rights, so did a lot of countries. I don't see how that makes us have no standing to fight oppression now. We were wrong, we came to that realization. Does that mean we are forever doomed not to be allowed to have a moral compass? It's the same silly argument I hear about OBL-since we helped him and the Taliban overcome Soviet aggression, that means we have no right now to fight against their current aggression towards us? Sorry, makes no sense. We fight aggression and oppression, where and when we recognize it and when we have the resources and the national interest to do so.
Do you realize what you are saying? Think about it. >
I can obviously see what you are getting at, and without going through the entire "why we were justified in getting rid of Saddam" argument yet again, I'll just say briefly that the US did not target civilians, we had UN resolutions justifying our actions, we were protecting our own national security and the security of Saddam's neighbors, Saddam was given plenty of opportunity to comply with the UN and avoid war and he chose not to, therefore the blood of civilians is on HIS hands, not the hands of the US, the vast majority fo people in Iraq WANTED Saddam out, and even though they are unhappy with the US presence there most say things are better now than before Saddam was in power...I could go on, but it's all been covered here ad nauseum. There is justifiable, legitimate military action and then there is terrorism. I have no trouble making the distinction between US actions and al quaeda actions, even if you do.
Plenty of people have answered it, including the 9/11 commission. They claimed only that Iraq was not directly involved in 9/11, not that there was no link between Iraq and al quaeda. Many well established links have been written here and elsewhere and are available to anyone who is interested in anything besides the liberal "no link between Iraq and al quaeda" drumbeat. Several commission members themselves scolded the media for misrepresenting their position on that issue.
If so, who determines what is morally right or wrong? If not the citizens of a country?>
Why not answer my question? Was Nazism morally right, since a lot of Germans approved of it? Did we have no right to take Hitler out, since he had the support of his own people? Why did we take him out then? Because he showed aggression and was a threat to OTHER sovereign nations. Because he refused to comply with the world's demands that he stop what the rest of the world viewed as wrong, even if his own people approved. But your scenario is irrelevant in the case of Iraq anyway, since most of the people in that country DIDN't approve of Saddam, and were only bowing to him by brutal force. Though they don't really want us around, they are certainly quite pleased that Saddam is gone. Or haven't you heard that side of things before?
I don't know, what do you think? Perhaps the reason the death penalty is not challenged more is because most of the people who are executed are cold blooded killers themselves. My guess is if we were slaughtering innocent children Europe might have something to say about it...oh that's right, we are doing that, and Europe quite approves of it from what I can tell. But I digress...in answer to your original question, yes, I do believe other nations have a right, no, a responsibility to try to put an end to oppression and human rights violations first by diplomatic means, but if all else fails and they are capable of it and care enough to do so, by military means. Yes.
And I happen to agree with them. But not enough to go to war over it if that was the only way to stop it, since war would kill far more innocent people than the death penalty ever would. But if the deaths of say, 1000 people might prevent the deaths of hundreds of thousands, or the tyranny of brutal terrorists over the world's policies, then I would say that would probably be worth it.
< What is the criteria for other countries to be 'right' to interfere militarily in the affairs of another country? What evidence is suffient to support the actions? Don't we need an international body for that purpose? >
No. We don't need the permission of an international body when our own national security is threatened. That's the criteria, plain and simple. Self-defense, and if there are humanitarian purposes thrown in there as well, all the better.
That's right-and we chose not to sacrifice our national security to the financial interests and egos of a few countries, all of whom had only just recently passed a resolution declaring Iraq a threat with WMDs, declaring that this was Saddam's last chance to disarm, and declaring that he would face serious conseqences if he failed to do so. I'm not sure what their definition of serious consequences was-maybe they were planning to take away his birthday or something. But I think it was perfectly clear to the rest of us.
If I had to summarize my issues with the US policies it could be done in two words: DOUBLE STANDARDS.
Pages