Flatten It Out
“If we just talk to ourselves we sound really smart.”
- Hillary about the blogosphere at the Kos Convention in Chicago
Click here to watch the video of Adam Gadahn, American Al Qaeda
The official Bush White House policy is that should there be another 9/11 style attack on the US, the US is going to "flatten out" the Northwest province of Pakistan because that is where the Al Qaeda leadership is holed up, and that is where they will have hatched the plan from.
And the top Republican contenders for the White House are taking Obama to task for suggesting if Bin Laden can be precisely located, he should be taken out immediately without regard to any protocol or sovereignty issues.
99.999% of the people in the Northwest province of Pakistan are not Al Qaeda. What sense would it make to punish them for an act by the Al Qaeda, especially when the US knows Bin Laden's broad geographical location, and still can not proactively go and get him? Bin Laden is not on sabbatical. He is actively plotting.
If it is wrong for Bin Laden to kill innocent people, it is wrong for George Bush to kill innocent people. With the flatten-it-out policy of the Bush White House, you got to ask, what's the difference between George Bush and Bin Laden? There is none.
The Bush White House does not know how to respond to an imminent threat. And it does not know how to respond should that threat come in the form of an attack. It has already made a trillion dollar mistake in waging a war on Iraq that was a war stolen away from the Al Qaeda. Iraq was taking eyes off the Al Qaeda.
A large top down state with a state of the art standing army and the most sophisticated of satellites is losing a war with a non state actor with diffuse, largely decentralized organizational structures, with no standing army and an over reliance on human intel.
And to focus exclusively on the military threat posed by the Al Qaeda is to miss the big picture.
There has to be a surefire, progressive way to spread democracy in Arab country after Arab country after Arab country. Arabs who migrate to the west would be apt frontline soldiers for democracy movements in their respective countries.
While you went to the moon, and the Mars, you forgot there are people in Africa, and they have to be discovered. They have to be paid attention to. They have to be listened to.
It is weird the US under right wing thumb will spend $500 billion in Iraq, but would not spend a few billion dollars in foreign aid. A lot of defense contractors who make major campaign contributions to the Republicans have made a lot of money in fighting a wrong war on a wrong battlefield.
The anti-war progressives are going to have to create a counterbalance by creating an industry that will get into the business of spreading democracy the progressive way by waging wars the communication technology way, the nonviolent way, the grassroots way.
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