Commissionism

Some thoughts on the 9/11 Commission from Hoover's Charles Hill which I agree with. One could be forgiven for thinking, listening to the self-important commissioners, that we are talking about meteors, not terrorists, hitting the US. There is a sense that these attacks are an inevitable part of nature, and the best we can hope for is to improve our early warning system and play better defense. Feels like 1930s Europe as it contemplated Nazi Germany or the pre-Reagan Cold War, in which "detente" was the best most hoped for. Yes, American's should seriously ask ourselves whether we should have spent the 1990's adjusting to the post-Cold War world and developing a new foreign policy that actually listened to the terrorists screaming their battle cry as they took on the WTC in 1993, the Kobar Towers, the African embassies, the Cole and the like. But I think this was THEIR fault, not ours. And I think that we can win this struggle, though it may take decades. Excerpts:

The commission has succumbed to the temptation to react to any major governmental problem with a recommendation for structural or institutional remodeling. ...

Intelligence collection and analysis is a very imperfect business. Refusal to face this reality has produced the almost laughable contradiction of the Senate Intelligence Committee criticizing the Bush administration for acting on third-rate intelligence, even as the 9/11 Commission criticizes it for not acting on third-rate intelligence. ...

Focusing so relentlessly on the overriding importance of intelligence about 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction has obscured the reality that we are waging this war in the Middle East because decades of dysfunctional rule across the region have produced Islamist terrorism; Saddamist-style hijacked states; and regimes fearful of subversion, such as Saudi Arabia, whose policies have inflamed the situation and increased the danger to itself. We are at war in the Middle East to prevent its takeover by a revolutionary ideology that aims to destroy the established international system, the United Nations, international law, human rights and all. ...

The Commission is a centerpiece of a larger American self-obsession, all about what did we do wrong, what we should have known, how we must do better. Necessary, without doubt -- but media fixation and the 9/11 Commission's lust for the limelight have crowded out attention to the nature of the enemy we face. Instead, it's we who haven't caught bin Laden; our presence in Iraq has created an "insurgency"; and if only we could change our policies (e.g., pressure Israel), all would change for the better.