An Examination of Credulity

“examining the credulity of the right-wing bloggers” - Anil Dash

Anil points to Together Again for the First Time: The perpetual hunt for an Osama-Saddam Entente by Jesse Walker.

A more answerable question is what exactly we are attempting to prove when we assert or deny that Hussein and bin Laden were allied. There are degrees of cooperation, after all, yet people sometimes talk as though there’s no difference between low-level interaction and a joint plot to hijack the airplanes of September 11. Hardly anyone denies that there were “links” between Iraq and Al Qaeda, if by “links” one means periodic communication; then again, not many people are willing to endorse a war just because Osama was in somebody’s rolodex. Quite a few people, on the other hand, deny that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 conspiracy, for the rather good reason that there’s little evidence that it was. (Feith’s claim that hijacker Mohamed Atta met with Iraqi agents in Prague is his most disputed assertion.) What we’re arguing over is the middle territory: whether Saddam aided and abetted attacks on American civilians, and whether he was planning to aid future attacks. At this point, given the pool of sodium that surrounds Feith’s testimony, there still isn’t demonstrable evidence that he was.

Compare and contrast the following.

There is no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11. There was no such relationship. - Bob Graham

There’s no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaeda ties. We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11 [attacks]. - George W. Bush

Notice the subtle difference. Maybe Iraq had something to do with it as John LeBoutillier believed. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they were complete innocent. Maybe they were waiting to see how successful they would be. Maybe they just worked very hard on plausible denialability. What difference does it make?

What matters is that the War on Terror is a war on terror. Not a war on Iraq. Not a war on al-Qaeda. A war on terror. It makes little difference if we take out al-Qaeda and Iraq just found another group to aid. It makes little difference if we take out the old regime in Iraq and Osama bin Laden just goes to some other country for funds and logistical support.

Jesse lates writes:

This is where the crux of the anti-interventionist case lies. Bin Laden had ideological reasons to despise the U.S., above and beyond the American actions that served as the rationales for his war. Saddam was more interested in power than ideology, and his ambitions were regional; bin Laden was a threat to those ambitions and that power. The only thing that could make anti-American allies of such natural foes is U.S. policy towards Iraq, which turned a distant dictator into a national enemy. It was Washington’s war on Baghdad—the first Gulf War, then the sanctions, then this year’s invasion—that pushed matters to the point where Bin Ladenesque jihadists now descend on Mesopotamia to attack American soldiers. If investigators ever uncover a joint effort between bin Laden and Hussein to kill Americans, they will have found a compelling reason to have intervened against Iraq. They will also have found a compelling demonstration that our past intervention in the region was a failure.

This is where the crux of his argument loses even the hint of rationality. The United States intervened in the Iraqi Occupation of Kuwait to a) liberate Kuwait and b) protect the other countries in the region. Unless I have fogotten something, the Gulf War was a rousing success on both counts. If our foreign policy is to be determined on the basis of avoiding upsetting some madman, then I would think the situation is hopeless. But unlike Jesse, I believe that there are some more rational objectives that may just prove to be achieveable. As the Prime Minister of the UK said yesterday,

What has caused the terrorist attack today in Turkey is not the President of the United States, is not the alliance between America and Britain, what is responsible for that terrorist attack is terrorism, are the terrorists. And our response has got to be to unify in that situation, to put the responsibility squarely on those who are killing and murdering innocent people, and to say we are going to defeat you and we are not going to back down or flinch at all from this struggle, for all the reasons I have given you earlier. This is what this struggle is about. - Tony Blair

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An Examination of Credulity

Bush Administration Deceit?

The Bush-Kerry Debate

Boogie To Baghdad- Connection Between Al-Qaeda and Iraq

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