Coleen Rowley: Get past Bush's war rhetoric

[goodhue]

Coleen Rowley: Get past Bush's war rhetoric to see what has or has not worked

Coleen Rowley
August 10, 2005

Last week another 25 young Americans gave their lives in the quagmire called Iraq. However, just before these latest casualties, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers unexpectedly dared to float the much more apt, useful description of the broader battle as a "global struggle against violent extremism."

But Rumsfeld's temporary totter with reality and away from his party's line was too much for the (again) vacationing president, who emerged from his Crawford ranch to proclaim: No -- it's still the same old "war on terror."

So all ended well in Roveland. The shrewd wordsmithers know it's obviously better to be seen as a "war president" than as a president who is struggling.

There had been some early signs of clarity, however, despite the continuing disintegration of Iraq. With their eyes fixed on what apparently matters the most to them (the 2006 congressional elections), the president and his generals had begun to think of "cutting and running."

Of course, that's not what they'd call it. But avoiding the same drawn-out, bloody end as occurred in Vietnam is reason enough to let the administration play loose with its terms ... and perhaps even the truth.

Sadly, if the analogy to Vietnam holds true, as it has so far, it will be several more years (as many as 12, in Rumsfeld's most recent guess), until the Iraq war dead multiply to fill another Vietnam-like Wall.

Actually, getting out of Iraq, no matter how it is marketed, could ironically mark the first real, not just rhetorical, change that must be made in the global struggle against violent extremism.

From the firsthand perspective of Minneapolis resident Sami Rasouli, director of the Muslim Peacemakers Team (who spent the last several months in his native country of Iraq and is now on his way back to help Christian and Muslim groups with peacemaking and rebuilding efforts), ending the American occupation is the only hope of quelling the ever-worsening factional infighting and insurgency.

His opinion is seconded to a large extent by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who observed Aug. 2 that the presence of U.S. and British troops in Iraq is fueling the insurgency.

Ending American/British occupation of Iraq will also remove at least some ideological fuel of the violent extremism that has caused terrorist attacks elsewhere in the world.

State Department figures have apparently shown the number of terrorist incidents soaring: from 2003's 20-year record of 175 incidents that killed 625 people -- to 651 such attacks that killed 1,907 in 2004.

Although a change in counting methodology may have accounted for some of the increase, it's impossible to now argue that we are winning the "war" on terrorism.

Despite the reluctance of the British and American governments to accept the obvious, their own intelligence services attribute the growing violence to reaction to US/UK actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One thing is certain: To prevent further attacks on our shores, and those of our allies, it is essential to cut through the president's war rhetoric to shed light on what has or has not worked in the actual global struggle against violent extremism.

We must put politics aside to unravel the mistakes that have made us less safe and determine what constructive steps can be taken to actually produce a safer world.

We simply cannot continue to go it alone. The United States and Britain need the rest of the world's help to bring peace to Iraq. We can gain more international support and defuse some Iraqi resentment by convincing them that we are not in Iraq for oil or military bases.

Wars of words can surely get our blood boiling, but it will take a global struggle against extremism, waged judiciously, to actually make us safer.

Coleen Rowley, Apple Valley, is a retired FBI agent who last month announced that she will seek the DFL nomination to run against U.S. Rep. John Kline in 2006.

http://www.coleenrowley.com/

[Jacobin]

1. excellent