Jonathan Rauch, an eminently fair-minded and non-partisan critic, has written a compelling essay on the presidency of George W. Bush and I think he really nails a couple of very important points. In particular, he points out that Bush's lawless approach to spying may well actually undermine the war on terror rather than help it:
An extralegal terrorism war. If the country seriously intends to prevent terrorism, then spying at home, detaining terror suspects, and conducting tough interrogations are practices that the government will need to engage in for many years to come. Instead of making proper legal provisions for those practices, Bush has run the war against jihadism out of his back pocket, as a permanent state of emergency. He engages in legal ad-hockery and trickery, treats Congress as a nuisance rather than a partner, and circumvents outmoded laws and treaties when he should be creating new ones. Of all Bush's failings, his refusal to build durable underpinnings for what promises to be a long struggle is the most surprising, the most gratuitous, and potentially the most damaging, both to the sustainability of the antiterrorism effort and to the constitutional order.
This is a very compelling argument. No serious person doubts that intelligence gathering is probably the single most important aspect of the current situation. We hear arguments over whether it's a military problem or a law enforcement problem (it's both, of course), but without solid intelligence neither option is going to be effective. We absolutely must have all of the information we can get about the activities of our enemies, and that requires both human intelligence (through informants, infiltrators or direct spying) and electronic surveillance.
Contrary to the line being peddled by the administration's apologists, no serious critic thinks that electronic surveillance is not necessary and legal when done correctly. Bush had an opportunity here to work within the bounds of FISA, a law that has a very low standard for issuing warrants, and establish a solid program of electronic intelligence gathering that would not divide the country and result in lawsuits and mistrust by American citizens by their own government.
The fact that he has tried instead to declare that he can do anything he wants in this regard and the courts can't even hear a case on whether it's constitutional has wounded our confidence in our own government's good intentions, divided the country at a time when we most need unity in the face of this threat, and put the entire system of checks and balances in our Constitution at risk. And I think there's a connection between this and another argument Rauch makes:
International opprobrium. The Iraq adventure fueled a precipitous decline in America's image abroad, and Bush's pugnacious style during his first term and his tin ear for foreign opinion made a bad situation worse. This is more than just a public-relations problem. National prestige is diplomatic capital; the more unpopular America becomes, the higher the price of foreign support. Mark Malloch Brown, the UN's deputy secretary-general, recently said that suspicion of the United States has grown to the point where "many otherwise quite moderate countries" are inclined to oppose anything we favor.
Here's the connection: He squandered an opportunity to bring the country together with his claims of omnipotent authority just as he squandered the opportunity to unite the world in opposition to the threat of Islamic terror with his arrogant, screw the world attitude concerning Iraq (remember, there was virtual unanimity on the rightness of our invasion of Afghanistan, both in this country and around the world). Just as that attitude causes otherwise reasonable people in other nations doubt our judgement and integrity as a nation, so the administration's callous disregard for the rule of law and constitutional boundaries has given otherwise agreeable Americans reason to doubt the administration's judgement and good intentions on a national scale. And that is a perception that is not easy to reverse, either domestically or internationally.
And make no mistake about it, the perception of other nations is important. We may be the only superpower left in the world, but as Joseph Nye has been telling us for years, our position of leadership in the world and our ability to maintain a stable world of beneficial relationships relies at least as much on what he calls soft power (which he defines as our "ability to attract others by the legitimacy of U.S. policies and the values that underlie them") - as it does on our "hard" power (our ability to project military might, for example). Nye argues that maintaining and enhancing our soft power is the key to "the ability of the United States to achieve its goals without resorting to coercion or payment." This is a lesson that Bush's father seemed to understand; his son, however, seems utterly oblivious to it.
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With regards to Soft Power, terrorism expert (if such a thing exists) Jason Burke wrote the following yesterday, in an essay I highly recommend:
"The appeal of the West is founded not just on a dream of a high level of material comfort but also on the satisfaction of basic and universal human values such as dignity, protection of life and justice. This gives the West considerable moral capital, but moral capital is a fragile commodity. This precious resource has been profligately spent in recent years. The fact that Abu Ghraib prison, where Saddam's henchmen tortured and maimed at will, is now known for American abuse of prisoners is both a disgrace and a tragedy. The information gathered at Guantanamo Bay can in no way be equal in strategic value to the damage done to the image of America around the world."
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1868964,00.html
I believe nearly everyone who follows this blog is likely to agree with me that anysuccess in the "War against Terror" (what a crock of manipulative horseshit just THAT is!) matters very, very, very little to the current faux-Republicans and Bu--sh--as, except as it gives them publicity and even broader powers to do whatever they please.
We are beset by a government controlled by a party whose core is only interested in their own profit, and in seeing their own beliefs inflicted, the more painfully and unjustly the better, on others.
They have lost the very capacity to be alive.
These essays may help in convincing the borderline stupid, but no one needs any more evideence that the current regime implanted upon American democracy must be removed, soon. The effects and cost of patience or negotiation for any other goals is likely to cost the life of the patient.
I remember at the time thinking what an opportunity the 11th of Sept attacks could have been to demonstrate the essential openness and justice of the Western way of life - identify the exact culprits through intelligence and cooperation and bring them to book by rule of law. Involving the peaceful Muslim communities around the world in this way would have achieved the simultaneous aim of uniting the two communities and also marginalising the ultra-violent, fundamentalist followers of Bush and Bin Laden. I wasn't, of course, stupid enough to think this was likely to happen, but it would have been nice.
I think everyone I spoke to knew well in advance that the Iraq war was bound to descend into chaos (none of us realised quite how badly, of course) and that all we'd achieve would be a violent polarisation of world society. Of course Bush and Bin Laden both welcome this as it consolidates their power as they become the only ones who can protect their own people from the other and so, spectacularly, it has proved.
Blair, Bin Laden, Bush - they have done a wonderful job of exploiting this whole business for their own ends. According to the Observer this Sunday there have been approaching 5000 victims of terror attacks in the last five years, including the attack on the twin towers. Since then the West has managed to kill 95000 people in the pursuit of it's 'War on Terror' (can't find the link, sorry). The world, including many of our own people - fellow Englishmen, you Americans - now increasingly views all three regimes as being on a similar level of utter moral bankruptcy, which is no surprise under those circumstances.
The saddest parts for me are the twin facts that it was all so horrifically predictable from the minute those planes struck and also that if we had behaved differently we could have achieved an overwhelming victory over extremists of all stripes. It's just a shame their extremists struck when we had religious fanatics of our own in office.
As Rauch points out, any foreign leader who chooses to cooperate with the US is going to incur political costs, in lost popularity with his own people. So the US is going to have to put more on the table in order to get that cooperation; i.e., we have to pay a premium in order to compensate for the attendent costs.
You'd think Republicans could understand a concept like that.
As Bush tells us, there is an ongoing struggle "between freedom and tyranny". That's why Bush supports warrantless wiretapping, imprisonment without trial, torture, and most recently, trial by secret evidence. It's because he supports freedom. I guess.