A citizen's sincere inquiry

My thoughts this evening turned to the "Global War on Terror", or GWOT as I've heard it called. It's hard to put a finger on what triggered these thoughts, but I think it was just a lyric in a song. And I got to thinking, perhaps, about the simple joy of enjoying a really great song, and thinking what a swell day it has been, and how well things are going.

But then I realized that there's also a dark cloud there -- a sense of having to suspend disbelief in order to enjoy such simple pleasures. You really have to make an effort to forget just how poorly things have been managed to bring us to this place. The costs of this war go well beyond soldiers lost and injured, dollars spent, and international goodwill cast away. There's the constant anxiety, the foreboding, the sense of gloom that is afflicting all of us. I've never really been all that worried about being a victim of terrorism -- I AM worried about watching the world spin out of control. I have the sense of being caught in a completely avoidable sequence of events I'm fairly powerless to halt or deflect. You really have to try to put that out of mind to enjoy a good song.

So that brings me to the war on terror. And I guess my question or thought is, so, what's the plan? I mean, in a war, you have a plan, and that plan is generally shared with "the team." This is/was a democracy, where citizens are supposed to participate in their nation's civic affairs. So, nearly 5 years in, I want to know how it is proposed that we win. In WWII (aka "the deuce"), with everyone on the same team, we had whipped the Japs and Nazis by now, reshaped Western Europe, freed dozens of former colonies, and settled in for a 50-year Cold War. This are doesn't seem to be much direction in this war, which is odd, since the Republican leadership likes to liken 9/11 to Pearl Harbor, and GWB to Churchill. I want to know: How do we measure progress in this war? What are the objectives? What is our strategy?

Some people seem to think that there is some sort of strategy. They think, well, we hand over some of our little liberties, like taking Coke or hand cream or nail clippers on an airplane. They even think that forfeiting our rights to privacy, due process and the right to a fair election are perfectly reasonable "sacrifices" to make in order to be more secure. And then there are all these bureaucrats we've hired, who like to change threat levels and occasionally issue ominous warnings about duct tape or dirty bombs. And we're supporting wars in the Levant, apparently with the express purpose of convincing the Islamic world that we hate them and are planning their demise (which, of course, is entirely counter-productive if you're trying to dissuade Muslims from becoming radicalized). But these measures are the (dumb) compensatory tactics of a new "normal"; this is NOT a strategy.

The closest thing the Bush Administration has struck upon to a strategy is the idea that if we bring democracy to the Middle East, Tehran will look like London in no time at all, and Americans will be shopping the bazaars looking for Persian rugs before Jeb makes his run at the White House in '12. While I'm perfectly prepared to believe that democracy in the Middle East would be a profitable development in the interest of world peace, any thinking person must realize by now that you can't export democracy via the 101st Airborne and the U.S. Marines. They can smash things (and there are things in the world that need smashing), but you don't bring in the demolition guys to build a building. You need architects and gardners to build things and make them grow. There's a distinct shortage of such people at the top. The Bush Administration's antagonism toward democracy at home is a strong indication that they haven't the first idea how to foster it abroad.

Democracy in strange places does not always bring the changes one hopes for. France and Venezuela are two good examples of countries whose democracies provide vexing problems for this Administration. It's amazing to think that they expected more amenable results from Shiites; so you wonder if perhaps this isn't exactly what they expected. Before you think I'm giving the Bushies too much credit here, keep in mind that the people in the Administration who actually understand such things aren't necessarily the same people who are making the decisions -- it's all very hard to penetrate.

So, while we're told there's a "war on terror" going on, our soldiers are caught in the middle of a simmering conflict which looks a lot more like civil war than den of terrorism. I hear the President say that our troops are fighting terrorism, but it seems to me that they're fighting Iraqi shopkeepers, dentists and the sons of date farmers -- and those Iraqis are killing each other in much greater numbers than they're killing Americans. When all the country's armed, it's silly to call everyone a terrorist -- unless your purpose is propaganda rather than reality.

This "war on terror" smells a lot more like the "War on Drugs" or "War on Poverty." And the fighting in Iraq smells a whole lot more like a good ol' Southeast Asian quagmire than the "central front in the war on terror." We've run into nationalism and a healthy appetite for self-determination there. Hell -- we didn't want the English here 230 years ago, and it's no surprise to me that they don't want us there today. Who would? Do you remember the movie "Red Dawn"? Where a bunch of patriotic American kids hid in the hills and smashed Russki tanks and helicopters with RPG and such? The escapade in Iraq is a lot like that. Our troops over there are getting "Swayzed".

I don't claim to have all the answers. But the Bush Administration clearly doesn't have the answers, either, and those are the guys who wanted to run the world, not me.

Again: What is the plan?