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"You Can Run, But You Can't Hide, Mr. Bush!" The Bushites Are Given A Failing Grade
In An Open Letter By Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D., October16, 2004
Just when Mr. Bush thought he'd sailed
by the Scylla of a potentially devastating foreign-policy critique from
John Kerry during the presidential debates, he was hit by the Charybdis
of an actually devastating foreign-policy critique from 729 scholars.
[1]
Less than three weeks before the election,
the "Security Scholars for a Sensible
Foreign Policy" ("SSSFP") issued an "Open Letter" that contains: (A) a
biting remonstrance to the Bush administration
for its failed foreign policy; and (B)
an urgent call for the USA to change its course in national-security and
foreign policy. [2]
If the letter's signatories were merely
the first 729 names taken from the Boston telephone book, it could be
peremptorily dismissed. However, the Open Letter's 729 signatories
are scholars in the field of national security and international politics
from more than 150 universities in 40 states. Moreover, its signatories
include many of America's foremost foreign-policy experts, some of whom
formerly were the federal government's most prominent staff experts in
the Pentagon, the National Security
Council, and the State Department. [3] Furthermore,
the SSSFP isn't aligned with the Democrats, but rather is a nonpartisan
organization.
Commenting on the SSSFP's "Open Letter,"
Professor Robert Keohane of Duke University
said: "I think it is telling that so many specialists in international
relations -- who rarely agree on anything
-- are unified in their position" concerning
the Bush administration's failed foreign policy.
Just how bad is Mr. Bush's foreign-policy
record, then? The SSSFP's "Open Letter"
offers its own tripartite critique, summarized as follows.
1. The Bush Administration's decision to
invade Afghanistan was justified as an
act of national self-defense in response to the 9/11/01 attacks for the
purpose of dislodging al-Qaeda and
its host, the Taliban. However, its tactical conduct
of the war was badly bungled during the later stages, thus permitting
al-Qaeda's top leaders, Osama bin Laden
and Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the Taliban's
leader, Mullah Omar, to evade capture. These leaders then reorganized
their cell groups and added new recruits
during a hiatus that was created by the Iraq
War, and they're still actively operating in Afghanistan today.
2. Mr. Bush's invasion of Iraq was the
most misguided foreign-policy decision since
the Vietnam War. It was a strategic blunder of the first magnitude,
because:
(a) The invasion of
Iraq diverted attention, vital resources, and special-operations
personnel away from the far more important, still-unfinished war in
Afghanistan;
(b) The case for war
against Iraq was not justified under international law;
[4]
(c) The case for war
was equally dubious under Just War Theory's moral principles;
(d) The Bushites' main
casus belli (i.e., justifications for war) proved to
be untrue;
(e) In that region,
Iran was a significantly greater sponsor of terrorism,
and its research programs were much closer to attaining a nuclear weapons
capability;
(f) Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan were terrorism's real breeding grounds;
(g) North Korea and
Pakistan already had nuclear weapons, and thus posed a
much greater risk of nuclear proliferation through hand-offs to terrorist
organizations;
(h) The Bush Administration
knew all of these pre-war facts, but instead chose
to conceal them, and to misrepresent the invasion's foreseeable risks
and costs;
(i) The Bush Administration
lacked a solid plan for the postwar occupation
and reconstruction phases, and it lacked anything approaching a clear
exit strategy;
(j) The Bush Administration
ignored Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki's
advice that 300,000+ troops would be needed to secure Iraq, especially
postwar, and the foreseeable result
was a massive security failure that led directly
to both the guerrilla insurgency and the US military's scandalous human-rights
abuses at Abu Ghraib; and
(k) In addition to the
high cost in US taxpayer money spent and lives lost
by the Iraqis and the Anglo-American Coalition, the geostrategic
consequences of the Bushites' amateurish
foreign-policy decisions have been overwhelmingly
negative for US interests, because they've squandered the world's post-9/11
sympathy for America, while they've
strengthened Islamic anti-Americanism and thus
served al-Qaeda's global interests, and we're still bogged down in an
exorbitantly-expensive, large-scale
guerrilla war in Iraq and a far-less-than-successful
military occupation in Afghanistan. [5]
3. Therefore, the USA should change its
national-security and foreign-policy course
by fundamentally reassessing not only our current strategy in Iraq but
also our future implementation of that
strategy, in light of:
(a) the real facts
on the ground in Iraq;
(b) the real facts concerning
al-Qaeda's methods and strategies; and
(c) sober attention
to America's real interests and authentic values, which
do not include neocolonialist adventures in nation-building through military
occupation. [6]
"Nothing is so strong as gentleness,
nothing so gentle as real strength."
-St. Francis de Sales
Overarching Conclusions: (1) 729 scholars
have just issued a sharp rebuke to Mr.
Bush for having committed extremely-serious strategic miscalculations
and tactical blunders that will have
long-term consequences for US foreign policy; (2)
the widespread consensus among these scholars is remarkable, because they're
accomplished experts who know whereof they speak, and because they typically
cannot agree on anything; (3) the SSSFP's "Open Letter" is substantially
in accordance with John Kerry's foreign-policy
arguments during the presidential debates;
and (4) we already know that Mr. Bush will neither reassess nor change
course, because the debates revealed (a) that he's a heedlessly-stubborn
neoconservative who is incapable of
recognizing -- much less admitting -- his mistakes,
and (b) his repeated promise that his second term will only bring "more
of the same" in national security and foreign policy. [7]
"We must become the change we seek."
-M.K. Gandhi
The Bottom Line: To paraphrase Mr. Bush's favorite stock phrase from the presidential debates: "You can run for a second term, but you can't hide from your own record!" The clear implication of the SSSFP's "Open Letter" is that 729 renowned experts on national security and international politics are emphatically advising the American people to hold Mr. Bush accountable for his catastrophic foreign-policy failures by promptly implementing a regime-change in Washington, DC; of course, the only legal means by which we can accomplish this end -- short of constitutional impeachment proceedings -- is to vote for John Kerry on November 2nd!
ENDNOTES
[1] Many viewers thought these presidential
debates were grossly inadequate in
their coverage of thorny issues which should have arisen from Mr. Bush's
foreign-policy debacles. Read
George Farah's 10-14-04 CD essay, "Eliminating Debate
From The Debates," in which he makes a good case for changing our deeply-defective
presidential debate system:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1014-26.htm Also
see this excellent website: http://www.OpenDebates.org/
[2] Read the SSSFP's 10-14-04 "Open
Letter":
[3] See the entire list of 729 signatories
to the SSSFP's "Open Letter":
[4] Read the author's 9-17-04 ICH essay
for the answer to this important question
-- "Was The Iraq War Legal, Or Illegal, Under International Law?":
[5] Consider that the very first sentence
within the Declaration of Independence
states that it's being written because Americans must accord "a decent
respect to the opinions of mankind,"
then read "The World Backs Kerry," a
10-15-04 GU editorial: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1015-23.htm
[6] For more details, read the SSSFP's
10-14-04 "Open Letter":
[7] Read two excellent essays that analyze
Mr. Bush's second-term foreign policy
intentions through recent public quotes from his neocon advisers.
(A) John H. Brown's
10-8-04 TP essay, "The Return Of The World Warriors":
(B) Jim Lobe's
10-7-04 CD essay, "Sidelined Neo-Cons Stoke Future Fires":
Author: Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D.,
is the Executive Director of the
American Center for International Law ("ACIL").
©2004EAPIII
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