The Self-Inflicted Wound of Iraq Now Clearly Worse Than 9/11

This has, of course, been true for quite some time, but now that U.S. military deaths have apparently reached 4,000 even the most benighted should be capable of recognizing that in the wake of 9/11 we have harmed ourselves far more grievously than bin Laden harmed us. Al Qaeda's real coup, as it turns out, was not 9/11 at all--not by a long shot. As it turns out, 9/11 itself was merely a drop in the bucket. Bin Laden's real blow against the U.S. came in a form that he could never have predicted. By reacting in an entirely irrational way to 9/11, the U.S. has harmed itself to an extent and in ways that bin Laden could never have accomplished even in his wildest dreams. To make matters worse, a hard core of Americans--including, tragically, the current administration--still refuse to admit that our post-9/11 policies have been (spectacular) failures. If those who are taking us down this disastrous road could at least come to their senses now, five years after things were set in motion, that would be something. It would give us a chance to turn a mind-boggling disaster into something more like a mere disaster. Unfortunately, there are few grounds for hope of that kind. It seems that any course correction will have to wait until January of next year at the earliest. Only when the Bush administration is out will we have any chance of setting ourselves a new course. Though, alarmingly, John McCain seems committed to perpetuating the policies in question. The possibility of a new administration perpetuating the policies of the Bush administration should send chills down the spine of anyone who'd been paying attention for the last six years.

Those who have supported the administration's misguided policies tend to try to paint those of us who oppose them as somehow "soft on terrorism." Nothing could be farther from the truth. We believe that our energies should have been directed at those who attacked us on 9/11, not on an unrelated war to take down one of bin Laden's enemies. The correctness of this proposed course of action should be clear despite the administration's multiple rhetorical smokescreens about WMDs, links to al Qaeda, and the promotion of democracy. The very fact that architects and supporters of the current policies are still willing to try to distort the debate in these ways is an indication of how stubborn are the political problems that prevent us from implementing rational policies in this regard.