America has always been an economic power. After all, our industrial might, not generalship, stopped the Axis powers during WW II. As Peter Beinart argues in Foreign Policy magazine, “The crucial insight is that power in world affairs rests on economic strength.'' The final master stroke of bin Laden has to be more serendipity than grand strategy. How could he know, or even hope, that the U.S. would be willing to throw trillions of dollars into the furnace of war, and how could he anticipate the freedom restricting money swallowing bureaucracies that would spring forth from our fear like the plagues from Pandora’s box.
After 9/11, not wanting to appear powerless, and for a loss of anything productive to do, we did what any confused goliath would do - we formed panels to find problems, and created agencies to manage the newly found problems. Unfortunately, in all this studying, forming, and managing, we failed to truly identify the enemy and articulate the threat to the American people. But Amber Alerts and network coverage of briefings on imminent terrorist attacks helped blustering politicians on the steps of the Capitol stay employed, the truth would only have gotten them insults... and worse, hurled by patriots of the tea party movement.
The problem is, if bin Laden and al-Qaeda is a terrorist problem why isn't law enforcement, the FBI, and the Department of Justice good enough to deal with the problem - they are arguably the best in the world at doing it, they always have been. If bin Laden is simply a general leading the army of al-Qaeda, why isn't the world's best and most expensive army able to deal with the threat? I know the argument; al-Qaeda and bin Laden transcend the paradigm of traditional terrorist or rogue nationalist/ideological actors, that his organization is too sophisticated and uses modern technology like cell phones and the internet, but really...really, this is the excuse we are using for the justification of the alphabet agencies we created after 9/11 and the billions of dollars they absorb. The Department of Homeland Security, the Transportation Safety Administration, the Office of the Intelligence czar are just a few of the dozens of new expensive top-heavy bureaucracies taxpayers feed everyday. (Note, be leery when western governments use Russian terms like “czar,” the term is usually associated with a loss of freedom at some level, that's why the Russian language is used - it conveys tyranny better than the English language.) The U.S. has expended an unreasonable fortune in new agencies, bigger government, and establishing a police state. Unfortunately, if al-Qaeda surrendered tomorrow, we would still keep these expensive agencies - bureaucracies never surrender. But this is only part of the story, for the other half of the story we have to look to the Middle East where we are burning dollars by the dumpster load.
Expensive weapons, IED proof vehicles, private security firms, UAVs, bribing corrupt officials, deploying and redeploying armies, soldier gear and state of the art body armor, and paying death benefits and disability benefits are just a few of the items that are causing the U.S. to hemorrhage dollars. Afghanistan, which has become America's longest war, has cost taxpayers $300 billion (a conservative estimate). The cost of the Iraq war is in the trillions. We spent hundreds of millions more in Yemen, Somalis, Ethiopia, Kuwait, and Qatar, just to name a few of the Middle East money pits. The fuel cost alone in Afghanistan amount to $100,000 per soldier annually. Just this week the CIA announced a $100 million contract to the security firm Xe, formerly Blackwater worldwide, for securing CIA facilities in Afghanistan. This contract is on top of an additional $120 million paid to Xe by the State Department for guarding U.S. consulates under construction in the war torn country.
Does the Blackwater name ring a bell? They were the U.S. based mercenary outfit charged with killing over a dozen civilians in Iraq. Companies like Xe are just one of the many ways the government hides the actual number of U.S. citizens fighting in the Middle East, the death toll, and the actual cost of our counter terror policy - remember this is not about the Taliban, we are in all these countries, supposedly, to fight al-Qaeda terror.
Think of the poverty we could have ended with $300 billion, all the education we could have funded for a trillion dollars, or the homeless suffering we could have ended with $220 million or the health care we could buy with the millions we have spent on security over seas. Think of all the lives we could have changed, changed in a good way. Bin Laden could not have imagined the extremes our fear and paranoia would manifest, or the destructive path we would take, but he must be content in his victory. No other enemy has changed American culture so completely with such a small investment - could you imagine the Arizona immigration law before 9/11?
Conclusion
Our fear has transformed all three branches of the Federal government and caused a paranoid shift to the political right, not necessarily in party, but in distorted populist views. This shift threatens anyone advocating reason in either political party to be shouted down as unpatriotic and a socialist.
President Obama, one of the most pragmatic presidents in our history, has even shied away from reason, justice, and compassion. He has not closed Guantanamo Bay, stopped torture or held those responsible accountable nor has he ended either war - if anything, he increased the suffering by authorizing more illegal bombing in Pakistan. A recent article in Foreign Policy magazine asserted that 31 percent of the deaths in drone strikes are innocent civilians. In a recent speech to the troops Obama declared, “We won't quit, we will do whatever it takes, and we will stay as long as needed.''
How many more innocent civilians will we kill because of this statement, how many have been killed already? Our current Afghanistan policy hearkens back to an absurd assertion made during the Vietnam war, “we had to destroy the village to save it.” Is Afghanistan the village that must be destroyed for American security? Meanwhile bin Laden smiles from his cave, another American president caught tight within his grip. When will we learn there is war because we choose war, and bin Laden has power because we choose to give him power. Two U.S. presidents saw the difficulties we now face and tried to warn us. The first was Washington, master of his own insurgent war, who warned of foreign entanglements - he knew we could not win them and they only caused a loss of money, men, and prestige...just ask the British.
The other prognosticating president was Eisenhower who warned of the growing power and influence of the military industrial complex, the one section of the economy that benefits from war, and has the cash to influence politicians to be ''patriotic.'' Recently Defense Secretary Gates lobbied to cut defense spending - a noble effort that will probably end his career if he pushes it. In response, congress is likely to overrule his decision to cut expensive unneeded weapons programs. America has become, quite intensively, a militarized police state. In his conclusion Beinart writes, “Obama’s leverage...will depend in large measure on his ability to stop hemorrhaging money, lives, and attention in the Muslim world so he can rebuild the political and economic institutions that form the foundation of U.S. national strength.” Bin Ladin may have provided us the opportunity to fear, but we intentionally continue to feed the beast.
War for most Americans has become a casual spectator sport - a chance for some payback maybe, to send the rag heads to the paradise they seek, to make the world safe for economic exploitation, fatty foods, and pop culture - our culture, remember Osama don't surf so fuck’ em! It has become as easy as pushing the reset on your X-box, unless of course, you are the family on the other end of that 500 lbs freedom bomb.
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