Instead of hearing “name, rank, and serial number,” the world saw these sailors acting chummy with their captors, “confessing” to their guilt, wearing enemy-supplied business suits, and pumping the Iranian president’s hand in deference. We have had real American civilian hostages, held for years in the eighties by Iranian-backed groups in Lebanon, who behaved with more dignity than these British “hostages.”
More importantly, their behavior is in stark contrast to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, who have been held for over five years and subjected to some unquestionably rough treatment, but have yet to cough up the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden or Ayman Al Zawahiri. So it has become quite apparent that the western world needs to shift gears in its fight in the war on terror – it needs to reacquire its “Cold War-style” mentality and rely on more human intelligence than raw firepower to win it. (This is the basis for a “Silent War” strategy – that I had advocated back in September 2002 – which is explained in my 2005 book, “The Bush Diaries.”)
In the interim, by its very definition, the conduct of the “global war on terror” needs to be subject to international scrutiny. While speaking before a House appropriations subcommittee about Guantanamo Bay prisoners recently, Defense Secretary Gates requested Congress “to address the concerns about some of these people who really need to be incarcerated forever, but that doesn’t get them involved in a judicial system where there is the potential of them being released, frankly.”
Secretary Gates’ statement was troubling in many ways:
1. It implied continued distrust in the U.S. judicial system, which the Bush Administration has repeatedly tried to circumvent in the handling of suspects related to the attacks of 9/11.
2. By suggesting that some of these people “need to be incarcerated forever,” Mr. Gates was prejudging the gravity of their guilt, which thus far has not been proven in a court of law.
3. Whatever happened to the basic tenet – innocent until proven guilty – of modern western law?
4. Asking Congress to legislate the equivalent of what former Judge John J. Gibbons has referred to as “law-free zones” within the United States sets a dangerous precedent – imagine American citizens being held in foreign countries that established their own “law-free zones?”
As horrific as the events of 9/11 were, the United States has since been viewed internationally as subverting the rule of law at Guantanamo Bay – akin to changing the rules in the middle of the ball game to ensure that it wins. If President Bush is serious about bringing democracy to the Middle East, he must realize that it is not a zero sum game – it does not have to be restricted at home to export it abroad. In clichéd terms – democracy, like happiness, is not a destination but a journey. How one gets there is as important as actually getting there? Noble ends do not justify ignoble means – habeas corpus rights ought to be universal and sacrosanct. Winning over the hearts and minds of those Middle East monarchies has become harder with the Bush Administration’s “do as I say, not as I do” approach to fundamental human rights.
Speaking of monarchies, Jim Hoagland wrote about “Bush’s Royal Trouble” recently in his Washington Post column and why King Abdullah had turned down one of those rare Bush White House state dinner invitations. In my judgment, this trouble is not as much of an indicator that “Saudis, too, know how to read election returns” in the United States, as it is their recognition of the new realpolitik in the Middle East. Apparently, Jordan's King Abdullah has also told the White House – guess who else is not coming to dinner? It is therefore pretty obvious that major foreign policy realignment is in the works amongst the Sunni nations of the Middle East.
It’s clear that the Sunni command structure has been threatened by the outcome of the Iraq war. In essence, they have seen an oil-rich, Sunni-ruled nation fall under the influence of Iran – a rising symbol of Shia power, which supports the likes of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. But they have also seen the growth of this Shia power emanating from their people via popular elections, whereas Sunni supremacy continues to be sustained through unpopular monarchies. The Sunni royals recognize that going forward Islam could be their great uniter, if not their savior – and thus, they must try to co-opt Iran before the West does.
However, co-opting Iran is anathema to the Bush Administration – they won’t even talk to Iran or, for that matter, Syria. Given the Sunni realignment taking place in the Middle East, one would imagine that the Bush Administration would engage these two neighbors of Iraq to ensure that its Iraq policy does not get burned at both – Sunni and Shia – ends of the stick. But then, charity begins at home – if the Bush Administration has a basic problem uniting domestic opposition to its war policies, how is it going to bring foreign opponents to the Iraq table?
This “my way or the highway” culture is inbred – most domestic opponents of President Bush’s “global war on terror” policies are constantly harangued by all manner of conservatives as being unpatriotic. It stems from their extension of Bush’s “you’re either with us or against us” philosophy to ordinary American citizens who have a different viewpoint. Again, had the Iraq war – a war of choice – not been a “sacrifice-free” war for most Americans, they would have found it harder to polarize the populace so effectively. Also, if President Bush has been unable to convince a majority of Americans as to the reasons for continuing with the Iraq war, now in its fifth year, he is going to find it increasingly difficult to win there. It can therefore be argued that it is the president who is being unpatriotic by deliberately persisting with a policy that most Americans believe is causing long term damage to the foreign policy and overall reputation of the United States?
Is it any wonder then that we had neoconservative David Brooks lamenting in his recent New York Times column that “a new Republican governing philosophy did not emerge” prior to the last election? Mr. Brooks even suggested that the GOP needed to “shift mentalities.” If this is any indication that the neoconservative movement has finally started to unravel, there still maybe hope going forward. It should clearly begin with a new direction in U.S. foreign policy – one that will take the high road to restore the principles, respect, and leadership of the United States, and one that let all the neocons bail out at the last exit entitled, “My Way.”
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