Brock4

Two Years Later:
Bush Still Clinging to World Police Instead of World Peace

Bernard L Brock (published in the November 1, 2003 Michigan Citizen)

Two years after the tragic attack and destruction of New York's Twin Trade Towers and Bush's military attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of a "War on Terrorism," the United State finds itself bogged down in what appears to be an endless and expensive terrorist conflict with the Arab world.

Facing mounting criticism at home and abroad, Bush reluctantly requested additional troops for Iraq from the UN, while he also made it perfectly clear the US would not give up the decision-making power. Bush gave the appearance of modifying his Iraqi stance without actually changing it. Thus, he stubbornly clung to the wrong "War on Terrorism."

Today, more than one American soldier has been killed every day since President George W. Bush declared "victory" in Iraq. In fact, more Americans have died since he declared "victory" than before his statement.

Within two years, the Bush's "War on Terrorism" and arrogant pre-emptive attack on Iraq has turned world public opinion, including some of our closest allies, against the United States, has de-stabilized the entire Middle East; and has tacitly given Israel permission to isolate Arafat, bring the Palestinians to their knees and pre-emptively attack Syria.

Finding ourselves powerless, having no idea how long this war will last or what "terrorist" country Bush will decide to attack next, Americans must ask, "How did we possibly get here?" I suggest that this tragic situation resulted from a series of very bad decisions made by President Bush:

Bush naively initiated a military, rather than a criminal, "War on Terrorism." The El Quaeda and their leader Osama Bin Laden are an international terrorist group with networks throughout the world. Osama Bin Laden was in Afghanistan, and the Taliban allowed him to stay. However, the terrorists were not a nation that we could literally declare war against. They can best be described as international criminals that the nations of the world should bring to justice collectively.
Bush egotistically chose the wrong role for the U.S. acting as world police. Instead, he should have acknowledged and responded to international terrorist events and requested the nations of the world to cooperate for a common cause. Bush shot from the hip and again assumed the role of world police when he told everyone that, "they were either with us or against us." This arrogant, unilateral approach gained very little cooperative support from other countries.
Bush blatantly relied on a false intelligence report to achieve his goal of making a pre-emptive strike against Iraq. After bombing Afghanistan to its knees, Bush told the American people and the world that British intelligence revealed Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction." He did this to justify the pre-emptive strike against Iraq instead of waiting for the UN inspectors to complete their search for such weapons. He never mentioned that the State Department had concluded the British report was false.
Bush foolishly acted on an idealistic belief that the Iraqis would embrace democracy. The Bush administration believed that because Saddam Hussein was so oppressive, the citizens would throw down their arms, welcome our soldiers and cooperate with a smooth governmental transition to democracy. We soon discovered with Americans dying daily that was not the case!
Bush dangerously advanced the war against both Afghanistan and Iraq without a clear, practical plan for nation building as he followed the military phase in each country. Bush acted quickly, underestimated the depth of hatred toward the US and, apparently, thought more in terms of how to justify his actions than how to engage in nation building. Soon after Bush declared, "the Iraqi War is over," it became apparent that the US could get bogged down in another Vietnam costing American lives and large sums of money.
Bush deceptively, for two years, hid the cost of the war knowing that it undermined all domestic programs and would probably increase the deficit to a record $600 billion. Bush even submitted his first budget, after declaring the "War on Terrorism," with no figures for the cost of the war because he was still pushing for a second tax cut to strengthen the economy. Later, he requested and received $67 billion for the war. Then, even after more Americans had been killed during the occupation than during the war, he requested another $87 billion. By now it is evident that the "War" will over-shadow all domestic priorities
Now, Bush stubbornly clings to fighting the wrong war, in the wrong country, assuming the wrong role, against the wrong enemy and for the wrong reasons.

President Bush's leadership is a formula for an American disaster. Sadly, it is too late to withdraw from Iraq. That would only lead to further chaos. However, it is not too late to change our course and move in the direction that we should have gone at the start.

We've already asked the UN to play a greater role. We should continue to supply leadership, but we should also swallow our pride and hand the primary decision-making control over to those who will establish a more credible multilateral approach, the UN. Thus, the US would no longer assume the role of the world police. Next, attention should shift away from crushing small Arab countries with our military superiority and focus on bringing about international coordination and cooperation on intelligence and investigative activities for routing out terrorism.

These actions would change the war's focus and release resources from other countries that would enable the nations of the world to bring to justice the terrorists without significantly increasing hatred against the West.

Bernard L. Brock teaches political communication at both Wayne State and Oakland Universities.