Friday, June 27, 2008

Mission Accomplished?

As we approach the 2008 Presidential Election with a foreclosure crisis, $4.00 per gallon gasoline, failing schools, rampant illegal immigration, partisan Congressional investigations, no-growth energy policies and a bitter internal political war to go alongside an actual war, it appears that the country is coming apart at the seams. Under the circumstances, I often wonder if this was the outcome Al Queda had in mind when those terrorists were sent to blow up the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the White House. In his wildest dreams, could Osama Bin Laden have imagined the United States almost voluntarily cannibalizing itself before the world in an effort to determine which party would be employed to pick up the pieces?

If the 2000 Presidential Election taught Bin Laden anything, it had to be that many Americans are more concerned about the well-being of their political parties than they are in the well-being of the country. The level of aggression over the Florida election dispute ensured that the losing party was going to view the elected President as illegitimate. Surely this factor would make the U.S. more vulnerable to a major attack. A nation with an embattled new President facing an economic recession would undoubtedly have trouble dealing with a direct attack on one of its major financial districts, especially when transportation, the circulatory system of the economy, was used as the weapon. A rattled populace would undoubtedly shy away from air travel and certainly think twice before using subways, light rail, bridges and tunnels. An economy afraid to move would almost certainly succumb to organ failure. However, in the short term, the American people managed to put their fears and partisanship to one side in order to fight together against a common enemy: global terrorism.

The country recovered under a renewed sense of purpose and patriotism. Congress and the President set about orchestrating plans to retaliate for the 9/11 attacks and to prevent other such attacks from occurring again. But we soon reverted to the political tactics of old. A mid-term election was to take place in 2002, and both parties had to get to work contrasting themselves from the other in the hopes of picking up Congressional seats. Soon, President Bush, who had enjoyed a short period of almost universal popularity, was again cast as a clueless, partisan villain unfit to deal with the new political realities. The Republicans won in 2002, largely because of the disproportionate hostility directed by Democrats towards the still popular President, but it was only a matter of time before Bush’s popularity eroded.

The U.S. launched the Iraq War in 2003 as a second theater in the global war on terrorism. Technology and 24/7 news networks eventually brought a new dimension to media coverage of a war. The almost instantaneous delivery of information from overseas war zones gave viewers the opportunity to view conflicts in real time, yet failed to give audiences enough time to put the impact of battle losses in proper perspective. Victories were seen as less significant while casualty numbers were blown up beyond all proportion. Then activist media with the help of like-minded politicians began shining the spotlight on some American troops, accusing soldiers of torture and desecration of Islam. The accusations were meant to reflect badly on the Bush Administration, but they also gave Islamic terrorists an undeserved status as people with legitimate grievances against the U.S. Western Europe started to give militant Islam a larger say in matters through a pattern of political correctness. Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed were condemned while the disproportionate reactionary Islamic violence was excused. Meanwhile, the United States had a Presidential Election to run. By 2004, Bush was portrayed as an inarticulate, nefarious, draft dodging fraternity boy who employed smarter, more evil henchmen to carry out his liberty stealing, oil enriching policies. The Democrats ran John Kerry, who, by virtue of his status as a Vietnam Veteran, could be seen to present a solid case for the anti-war movement. Bush won re-election in 2004, but the margin of victory was close enough to allow Democrats to use “Bush fatigue” as an effective campaign issue.

Several partisan clashes ensued, from judicial appointments to gas prices and from illegal immigration to treatment of enemy combatants. Soon, Al Gore, the man George W. Bush defeated in 2000 reemerged with his film “An Inconvenient Truth”. Gore’s film, which linked future environmental catastrophes to Global Warming and linked Global Warming to American industry, became required viewing in many public schools. The destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina created a perfect backdrop for Gore and like-minded politicians to further sell the notion of Global Warming to average Americans seeking answers. Conservation and “alternative energy solutions” were to be employed at the expense of oil and other established “fossil fuels”. This meant that no further efforts to expand domestic drilling, refining and transport of oil were to be accepted. Many Americans, with the guidance of Democratic and even some Republican politicians rejected efforts to increase domestic oil supply “on behalf of the environment” and instead called on Congress to put domestic oil producers on the spot for “price gouging” and “windfall profits”. As more populace nations like India and China have become industrialized, worldwide demand for oil has reached unprecedented highs. Without additional supply of oil or any widespread comparable alternatives, the extra demand has driven the price of oil to new records. And the cost of fuel has been passed on to air transport, food prices and many of the industries that make this country work.

So I wonder, almost seven years after the 9/11 attacks, what is Osama Bin Laden thinking? An embittered nation with an unpopular President and a tenuous economy is entering another Presidential election cycle. At best, the two candidates are promising to enact more of the destructive economic policies that have caused the current crisis. Is this nation about to collapse under the weight of its own arrogance and economic stupidity? And if so, is this crisis the belated result of the 9/11 attacks or a bonus gift for Bin Laden and his minions? Either way, he must be enjoying this theater…wherever he is.

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