In today's pages: What we've lost in six years
The editorial board reflects on six years of the war on terror:
[T]he decision to invade Iraq has proved, in our view, a distraction from the struggle against radical Islamist terrorism, and it has cost us dearly. More than 3,700 American soldiers have lost their lives on foreign sands. Another 27,000 have returned home with injuries, many of them life-altering. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or wounded and about 4 million forced to flee, half of them to uncertain foreign refuge. Their scars will mar the future as anger over the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and its injustices at Guantanamo Bay breedsnew enemies.
Those are harrowing consequences of a war waged by an administration that has misunderstood its enemy and its place in history. But the price of this president's military and domestic overreach has been highest in the loss of faith in America itself, in the values and institutions that have historically defined this nation.
The board offers more reasons why the country needs a federal shield law, and why the Catholic Church's settlements will cost it more than just assets.
Columnist Jonah Goldberg argues that the blowback that created Osama bin Laden came from Russian troop withdrawal in Afghanistan, and our withdrawal would have a similar result. Graham Allison and retired Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan say the U.S. has no choice but to withdraw given our struggling troop numbers. George Washington University's Jonathan Turley thinks Phil Spector was right to use highly paid expert witnesses. And Eric Weiner advocates slacking.
Readers discuss government response to the mortgage crisis. Los Angeles' John Hutton asks who the government is going to bail out, noting, "There aren't financially irresponsible borrowers, only financially irresponsible lenders."
"For years, some of the shriller voices on the left have argued that 9/11 was a classic example of "blowback" from our support of the mujahedin's struggle against Afghanistan. But the fact is we didn't "create Bin Laden" -- he largely created himself. And to the extent that any superpower can claim credit for him, it's the Soviets. It was their withdrawal, not our support, that convinced the foreign fighters that their pinpricks felled the Soviet bear."
Yeah, the Soviets deserve their share of the blame, but their withdrawal wasn't the problem. Once they invaded, the chips had to land somewhere.
If the people of Russia have suffered something of a Chechnyan bin Laden, then that certainly can't be blamed on a withdrawal. I wouldn't blame the Irish Free State for the IRA either. I wouldn't blame our withdrawal from Vietnam for the rise of Khmer Rouge--it was our actions that put them there. It was our enemies that put them down.
I don't see how we can blame the genesis of a vicious, violent resistance that coalesces to resist an occupation on a withdrawal. Occupation hardens a group like that and withdrawal may relieve some pressure, but it's the invasion that gives it life.
The Russians had a choice--they didn't have to invade Afghanistan.
If you don't want a vicious, violent resistance movement, then don't invade and occupy a foreign country. Sometimes it's better to occupy a nation in a war of self-defense, and I can even understand preemption as a justification, but the Soviets didn't invade to preempt anything. The invasion of Afghanistan, despite whatever justifications they claimed at the time, was not a war of self-defense. And it was the Soviet decision to invade that created the resistance that coalesced around people like bin Laden. ...not their decision to withdraw.
Once the resistance was there all that energy had to go somewhere.
Posted by: Ken Shultz | September 12, 2007 at 03:56 PM
If the money that has been poured down the Iraq rat-hole had been spent instead on eliminating our dependence on foriegn oil through the development of alternatives, we would be a lot better off--jobs created here in the US, a technological edge over the rest of the world, no-ill will created in an attack on Iraq, and thousands of American and Iraqi lives saved.
Posted by: Hoover | September 12, 2007 at 09:38 AM
Well, Keith, that's the point of having an Opinion section and Editorials. It's only two pages of an otherwise pretty thick newsgathering enterprise.
Posted by: Matt Welch | September 12, 2007 at 09:34 AM
Yes, maybe the LA Times editors should run foreign policy and the Iraq War. That would be a smashing idea. Better yet, how about just sticking to producing the news, no matter how abysmally you seem to get it done.
Posted by: keith | September 12, 2007 at 07:51 AM
If America could reduce its dependancy on forign oil, release all the gitmo prisoners into real courts, with real trials, and pull out or Iraq, the world will still hate America for a long time to come.
it takes a very long time to build international friendships, and it only takes one dumb president a single term in office to make the rest of the world very angry.
its a long, hard road ahead, but it is worth taking.
Posted by: kyle | September 12, 2007 at 12:23 AM
A lot of Americans who are critical of Iraqi war are not aware how vulnerable America is to Islamic fundamentalist terrorist onslaught.
America needs oil.
Lots of oil and more than 70% of world oil production are controlled by Arab countries.
Moreover, Arabs have trillions of dollars invested in American corporations and banks.
There are about 1-2 billion Arabs in the world and most are leaning towards the Islamic fundamentalist propaganda.
More than half of the world population don't like America anymore.
When you add to this, the Russians, Indians, Chinese, Africans, Vietnamese, Indonesians, North Koreans, Japanese, South Americans (especially Venezuelans, Colombians, Nicaraguans, Cubans) to this, you will have about 4-6 billion human beings who hate America.
So, America needs to do a lot of foreign relation work to remedy this ugly situation or it would be doomed.
Pulling out of Iraqi would only help to re-assure those who hate America that Chairman Mao was right when he said America is only a paper tiger
Posted by: secret33.com, (on America is in serious trouble) | September 11, 2007 at 08:17 PM