Policy decisions by the Bush administration have made American national security the worst it has been in years, if the opinions of Tufts political science professors are anything to go by. The comments by renowned journalist Seymour Hersh re-emphasize the policy mistakes made by the Bush administration, in Iraq and elsewhere. If one issue sends you to the polls tomorrow, it should be how bad U.S. national security has gotten.
The Bush administration has used the Sept. 11 attacks as an excuse for using neoconservative policies to extend American power. The war in Afghanistan was a valid response to the attacks in New York and Washington. In the case of Iraq, however, the administration fabricated connections between Iraq and Sept. 11 to gain public support for the war.
The weapons of mass destruction, which were the reason the United States went to war, did not exist either. Unfortunately, the majority of Bush supporters still believe both of these arguments, according to Tony Smith, political science professor. It is ridiculous that on the eve of the election, so many Americans are misinformed about issues pertaining to the Iraq war.
As Hersh pointed out, the Bush administration uses its ideological views in shaping foreign policy. Ideology is nice for the textbooks, but policy itself cannot be formulated in simple black and white. There must be room for change in case the original course proves to be wrong. Bush, however, has not done this in his "War on Terror" or in Iraq.
Perhaps the United States went into Iraq because Bush wanted to spread democracy, as Hersh believes. Whatever the original (unsaid) intentions, the situation in Iraq has sunk into a quagmire. There appears to be no strategy to solve the rebel warfare, with attacks on American forces escalating by the day. Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is ready to authorize major military action in Fallujah, a city which has resisted U.S. control, which is only going to exacerbate the situation.
Yet Bush continues to refer to the war in Iraq as the right decision and will not listen to criticisms, dismissed as un-patriotic. This country deserves a president who is not only strong enough to make "tough decisions," as Bush calls them, but is also strong enough to admit when those decisions were wrong.
Despite all the attention given to the war in Iraq, Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders still remain on the loose in Afghanistan. His most recent video, aired last Friday, shows that Bin Laden still aims to have an influence on American politics. Military intervention in Iraq has made the United States even less popular in the Middle East.
The Bush administration's decisions have only increased resentment to the United States, allowed more al Qaeda-affiliated pockets to fester and done nothing to free the country from the specter of terrorism.
