Politics of panic led US to unnecessary 20-year war
Following the incredible success of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush responded, not calmly and thoughtfully, but with an unthinking reflex: the primitive desire to strike back with all our might. The politics of panic took over, leading us into 20 years of war.
He could have called it a cowardly act of terror – a crime – and led an international effort to find the culprits, but he chose instead to call it an act of war. Rather than organizing clandestine intelligence gathering efforts and pinpoint strikes against those responsible, he decided to go to war – first in Afghanistan (the terrorists’ hiding place); then in Iraq as well (for some reason).
Most of Congress went along for the ride, giving Bush the same kind of carte blanche they had once given Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Once again, Americans were led to abandon their own principles. Our sense of justice was perverted; torture was defended as an acceptable practice.
Abu Ghraib prison took its place alongside the My Lai Massacre in the annals of American disgrace.
In many ways, the wars hurt us more than the 9/11 attack itself. In the end, it was not war, but a diligent intelligence effort that finally led us to the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and enabled us to eliminate him. If only that had been our focus from the beginning.
I hope against hope that I will never again have to see us fall prey to the politics of panic.
Randall Condra, Columbus