He won by setting in motion a fear and confusion that the bush administration bought, hook line and sinker. They not only bought it, they revved it up to achieve an agenda that had more to do with executive power and oil markets than it did national safety. Bogus claims of WMD, untrue al Qaeda-Iraqi links, and torture-obtained false intelligence were convenient covers.
No further attacks were necessary, because our fear response led cheney/bush to demolish some of the values we as nation have held most dear. The rule of law, the moral high ground, the protection of privacy. Instead, we tortured, we wiretapped our own citizens, we destroyed legal protection, and we politicized the system of justice.
And bin Laden himself seemed to understand that we would self-destruct in response to his attack, even if our own government didn't.
As Jay Bookman wrote in yesterday's AJC:
Our strength is in our principles and commitment to values. But what did it take to make us throw all that away? Nineteen men armed with a plan and box cutters? That is Obama bin Laden's victory: He scared us into fleeing the high ground.And then he quotes bin Laden himself from a 2002 released recording:
"All these things vanished when the Mujadiheen hit you, and you then implemented the methods of the same documented governments that you used to curse," bin Laden chortled in 2002. ". . . What happens in Guantanamo is a historical embarrassment to America and its values, and it screams into your faces: 'You hypocrits, what is the value of your signature on any agreement or treaty?'"Jay continues:
On the eve of our invasion of Iraq, President Bush issued a warning to the Iraqi military: "War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, 'I was just following orders.'"And then that's exactly what he had his people do: commit war crimes and claim that they had been told it was not illegal -- first cousin to "just following orders."
I wonder now, in his retirement and apparently no longer speaking with cheney, if bush ever looks in the mirror and thinks about all this . . . ?
Ralph
I've been thinking some more about the question I posed, whether bush ever thinks about all he has done, now that cheney is no longer pulling the strings.
ReplyDeleteAlthough he is not naturally a reflective person and claims not to look back, I think the last couple of years suggest that he did. Or at least that he stopped listening to cheney. Condi Rice and bob Gates seemed to have won out over cheney in influence.
And then not pardoning Libby was both the final blow-off of cheney. (unless as I've speculated before they cooked that up to keep Libby from testifying against them; if he were pardoned, he couldn't be charged with crimes himself and so would be free to tell the truth. As it is now, he has reason to continue the coverup lies.)