In my opinion, President Bush’s unprincipled and pragmatic approach to foreign policy issues has begun to spell disaster for the security operations in which our country has engaged in (the war with Afghanistan and Iraq), and for the continued security of the citizens of America. President Bush has failed in two primary ways: the failure (or the refusal) to identify the enemy of this country as Islamic fundamentalism which has resulted in the failure to pursue the best military strategy necessary for defeating this enemy.
According to pragmatism, there are no absolutes. In the pragmatist view, everything about reality is in constant flux, which means, that no truth can ever remain constant; including, fundamental principles of philosophy. When making a decision about what course of action one should take therefore, according to pragmatism, there is no method of reason which one can appeal to except whether or not that specific course of action “works.” There is no way of knowing beforehand if that course of action will work, which means that one must constantly experiment to see if their idea will work in practice. However, unlike the scientist in the laboratory who is able to derive causal principles of reality and attain knowledge, the pragmatist claims that what works today may not work tomorrow. As a result, in EVERY situation regarding decision-making (and every other aspect of one’s life), a person can only try what they FEEL to be right and hope that it goes well.
Under President Bush, our foreign policy (along with many aspects of our domestic policy as well) has been riddled with pragmatism.
Here are the facts:
1. On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists working for the Al-Qaeda organization hijacked 4 jet airplanes, flew 2 of them into the two towers of the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon, and another headed towards Washington D.C. but was apparently taken down by the brave hostages of that flight (presumably, this airplane was headed towards The White House or Capitol Hill).
2. The reason for this attack was not that the members of this organization wanted to engage in terrorism as such, but rather, wanted to force their particular agenda through a specific method: terrorism.
3. This agenda is called Islamic fundamentalism, which states that any individual (and thereby society as well) which does not believe in the Islamic conception of God, Allah, is evil and therefore it is good to declare jihad (holy war) against those individuals and societies. Additionally, the commonly held values amongst Islamic fundamentalists are faith, sacrifice to a higher power (in this case, Allah), and force (through Islamic theocracy). Therefore, any individual or society that advocates the opposite of these things (reason, egoism, individual rights, and freedom) is natural enemies of Islamic fundamentalism. These Islamic fundamentalists have openly declared war against The United States and the allies of freedom, and are actively engaging to inflict great harm on us.
4. Islamic fundamentalism has influence in the government as well in the citizens of such countries as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the Palestinian Authority, Pakistan, etc., and formerly Iraq and Afghanistan). As a result of this influence (which is particularly strong in many of these areas), these dictatorships present a grave threat to the security of The United States, not only because of their own ideologies, but because they support Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, etc.
5. The theocracy of Iran is the heart of the Islamic fundamentalist movement. It was in Iran where jihad was first declared against the United States of America, it was Iran that engaged in the first terrorist acts against the United States of America, and it is in Iran where the Islamic fundamentalists hold the most power over the government. Additionally, U.S. intelligence reports have ascertained that Iran is developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons, perhaps achieving that capability within 2 years time.
6. The communist dictatorship of North Korea has developed nuclear weapons and it is reasonable to assume that they would sell such weapons to those with whom they share a common enemy. It is reasonable to assume that North Korea would supply Islamic fundamentalist organizations with such weapons. (In fact, reports have alleged that North Korea and Iran have agreed to share weapons technology with one another.)
7. The United States military has the overwhelming ability to wipe out all of these threats in a short period of time, thereby ensuring the security of the citizens of The United States from further, and perhaps more severe, terrorist attacks.
The critical error of President Bush was the failure (or perhaps the refusal) to identify our enemy as Islamic fundamentalism. Instead of identifying this ideology which has openly declared war on The United States, President Bush has labeled our enemy as “terrorism,” which clearly confuses the method by which the Islamic fundamentalists are waging war against us with the actual threat itself: the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism. There are many potential reasons for this failure, such as merely ignorance on the part of the Bush administration, or more likely, the fear that labeling our enemy as “Islamic fundamentalism” would anger the Islamic world. Either way, this failure to properly identify our enemy as Islamic fundamentalism has resulted, along with the influence of pragmatism, in our clear inability to formulate a proper military strategy for defeating this threat.
The failure to properly identify our enemy as Islamic fundamentalism, along with the influences of pragmatism; have resulted in three failures in our military operation against the Islamic fundamentalist movement: a failed military campaign in Afghanistan, the failure of attempting to gain the support of the United Nations, and the overall failure of not executing a proper military strategy.
Afghanistan was an important target to attack in our war against Islamic fundamentalism because a large number of Al-Qaeda operatives were operating in that region, with the assistance of the government of Afghanistan: the Taliban. However, due to the policies of the Bush administration, the war against Afghanistan was in many ways, a failure. First of all, the Bush administration did not send enough troops into Afghanistan in order to ensure that it would be difficult for Al-Qaeda operatives to leave the country. While we did eliminate a large portion of the funding, support services, and the Taliban structure that was supporting Al-Qaeda, by not engaging enough troops, we failed to prevent many Al-Qaeda and Taliban from escaping the country (perhaps including the leader of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden). What was the cause of this failure? The fear of upsetting our enemy with too many civilian casualties rather then ensure that the lives of American soldiers and citizens are safe, and the pragmatic conception that our enemy will somehow respect us if we endanger ourselves rather than the enemy.
As the next target for the U.S. war against Islamic fundamentalism, the Bush administration decided that the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein was the best target to wage war against. Prior to engaging this war however, the Bush administration spent roughly 9 months attempting to gain the support of The United Nations in this engagement.
As I stated in my 9/7/2003 post, I Condemn President Bush:
The United Nations is a thoroughly corrupt and evil organization. While an organization composed of free nations, working together for their own mutual self-interest would be quite beneficial to all involved, that is certainly NOT what The United Nations is. The United Nations is an organization comprised of a number of dictatorships and terrorist states, along with semi-free countries such as the U.S. and the U.K. The basic premise of the UN is that there is little or no distinction between a free nation, such as the US, and an evil dictatorship, such as the Soviet Union which was a member of the UN during its existence. There is no ethical or political superiority between nations, but rather, every nation is on an equal ethical and political playing field, regardless of whether or not they respect individual rights or slaughter millions.Based on this premise of moral and political relativism, the UN advocates the idea that no one nation is capable of determining what is right or wrong for themselves, and thereby acting on that knowledge. Instead, only a consensus of many nations (whether or not they are free or dictatorships is irrelevant to them) can decide what is right or wrong. (This is what is meant by the condemnation of the U.S. acting “unilaterally” and the advocacy of “multilateral” action.) ”
By negotiating with an organization which sponsors terrorist states and dictatorships, The United States explicitly sanctioned those very terrorist states and dictatorships. By doing so, the Bush administration sent the message to all of the terrorist organizations and dictatorships of the world that if they attack The United States, we will spend months negotiating with the very enemies that attacked us. The United Nations is totally incapable of properly protecting the security of America for these reasons. What was the cause of such negotiation? The influence of pragmatism. Since there are no absolute truths, since there are no principles by which we can consistently determine the correct course of action, let’s experiment by attempting to negotiate with The United Nations, to negotiate with the very enemies of our country; said the Bush administration. As a result of the negotiation with The United Nations, the Bush administration wasted critical time in the war against Islamic fundamentalism, the Bush administration provided time for our enemies to build-up their capability of attacking us, and the Bush administration provided moral sanction for the terrorists that have attacked us and are plotting to attack us again.
When the negotiation with The United Nations failed, the Bush administration, correctly, decided to wage war against our enemies by “going it alone.” However, by targeting Iraq as the next target in our war against Islamic fundamentalism, I believe that the Bush administration made a critical mistake. In my opinion, based on the influence of Islamic fundamentalism and the capability to produce nuclear weapons, I believe that there are 6 essential threats to the security of the United States which must be taken out.
The following is a list which includes Afghanistan and Iraq, which means, that I am assuming, with this list, that it is Sept. 12, 2001. In some cases, I have put two countries in the same spot which indicates that I believe that they should be (or should have been) attacked at the same time. While I do not consider myself to be an expert on this situation and the status of these countries by any means, I believe that this list accurately portrays the overall importance to eliminating these threats.
1. Iran and Afghanistan
2. North Korea
3. Saudi Arabia
4. Pakistan
5. Syria and the Palestinian Authority
6. Iraq
As you can see, while I believe that the elimination of the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein was an important task, it was not nearly as important as the elimination of 7 other regimes. I believe this to be true for many reasons. First of all, at this present time, having eliminated the threat of Afghanistan, I believe the dictatorships of Iran and North Korea to be the biggest threat to America’s security. I believe this to be true because North Korea has openly admitted that it has nuclear weapons and is pursuing a more advanced nuclear weapons program, and Iran is in the process, according to U.S. intelligence, of developing the capability for a nuclear weapons program (perhaps obtaining nuclear weapons within 2 years). Additionally, these two countries are staunch enemies of The United States of America. As I stated earlier, Iran is the heart of Islamic fundamentalist movement. Additionally, North Korea is a communist dictatorship which has obtained nuclear weapons and is threatening their use against the United States in order to extort aid. As I demonstrated in my 7/11/2003 post, North Korea Must Be Stopped:
Every dictatorship today attempts to survive through two means: conquest of other nations, or mooching aid under the veil of altruism from powerful countries. Centuries ago, there were numerous dictatorships who survived by the means of the first, conquest of other nations. In modern society, war is heavily frowned upon and may bring immediate sanction from many others in the world. Now, most dictatorships turn to the second method. They appeal to the alleged “duty” of the freest nations of the world (which are also the most successful) to pour money into their dictatorship. One reason why some claim that the successful nations of the world have this is duty is because of the false idea that wealth is fixed, and when one country gains wealth, it is taking wealth away from others. Thus, the economically successful nations have a “duty” to “give back” what they have expropriated from third world countries.As a result of this alleged duty on the part of the successful nations, these dictatorships have found a new source to loot from. Now, these dictatorships play on the “guilt” of the economically successful nations and are therefore able to survive as a parasite for a long period of time. This is readily apparent with the situation with North Korea. North Korea however doesn’t only live off of the second method of mooching, but the first as well. The people of North Korea are starving, which is a regular condition of a dictatorship. In response to this, nations such as the U.S. provide aid to North Korea so that the people of North Korea will not starve to death, which on the face of it, seems like a very humane and benevolent thing to do. However, this action of giving food aid to North Korea allows the dictatorship to continue its existence. Instead of having to be concerned with feeding its starving population and deal with rising dissent because of it, North Korea can pour a lot of money into its military. If North Korea (and all other dictatorships like it) can amass a large military force, or a large amount of power through nuclear weapons, they can extort more money from the economically successful nations of the world. This is exactly what is happening with the U.S. and North Korea today, and in the past 50 years.
While Iran is actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program and North Korea ALREADY HAS nuclear weapons, the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein seems to have been much less of a threat than the Bush administration made it out to be. Instead, it appears that even if Iraq was pursuing a weapons of mass destruction program (which I believe they were); they were much less advanced than Iran and North Korea in the development of weapons of mass destruction.
Why then, if not for objective reasons, did the Bush administration decide to target Iraq as the second target in our war on Islamic fundamentalism? It seems to me that the cause of this decision was, once again, pragmatism. The Bush administration most likely believed two primary things:
1. They could “sell” the campaign against Iraq because of its past transgressions against the civilized world and because Iraq is viewed as a secular dictatorship as opposed to an Islamic theocracy such as Iran.
2. Establishing a free society in Iraq would result in the immediate influence of freedom in the surrounding countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria; thereby eliminating the need to use military force against these threats.
Both of these potential premises of the Bush administration are totally wrong. First, there was no need to “sell” this war to our enemies, nor to The United Nations. The U.S. military clearly has the ability to wipe out these threats with ease. Second, the establishment of a free society is not something that can be done overnight. It requires very firm and correct philosophical ideas along with the best means of applying those philosophical ideas into practice. Considering the fact that The United States does not have those correct philosophical ideas or the correct practical implementation of those ideas itself, how could it bring these things to Iraq? Additionally, it is ridiculous to believe that the enemies of freedom, capitalism, reason, egoism, etc., would somehow replace the ideals of faith, sacrifice to a higher power, and theocracy; which are present in Islamic fundamentalism. Even if The United States could establish some sort of free society in Iraq, it would take many years to do so, in which time, the enemies of The United States (such as Iran and North Korea), would have a lot of time to develop nuclear weapons and plot new ways of attacking The United States.
For all of these reasons, I firmly believe that the foreign policy of the United States government has been an utter failure. The Bush administration has clearly failed to identify our enemy as Islamic fundamentalism and therefore has conducted an inept military campaign which has included the failure to prevent many Al-Qaeda operatives from escaping Afghanistan, the failure of negotiating with terrorists and dictatorships through The United Nations, and the failure of attacking Iraq instead of Iran and North Korea. Additionally, I believe that military campaigns against the 6 remaining threats that I mentioned would not be difficult at all. The people of Iran have been SCREAMING for the overthrow of the Islamic theocracy, the people of North Korea are starving and would welcome the end of the communist regime; and we could completely eliminate the Palestinian terrorists by supporting Israel in eliminating them (see all my posts on Israel and the Palestinian terrorists). Therefore, I condemn the foreign policy of President Bush, and I firmly believe that our course of action in the “war on terror,” which should actually be referred to as the “war on Islamic fundamentalism,” has failed.
