Today I want to discuss Monday morning quarterbacking and a couple of recent stories concerning the Bush administration's handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. First, in a report being released today, literally on a Monday morning, although news outlets reported the findings over the weekend, a Senate committee has determined that the U.S. could have and should have captured or killed Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora in December 2001. I'm no fan of the Bush administration, particularly with respect to its war machine brain trust, but I like this current exercise in coulda, woulda, shoulda even less. I am particularly troubled that the report was called for by Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and perhaps not coincidentally, Bush's presidential rival in 2004. In my very first blog entry I called for grown ups to step up and lead, but apparently that call has gone unheeded. To say the least, expending these resources just to formally say, "Nyah, nyah, I told you so!" is unbecoming of an elder statesman.
People will criticize Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al for Tora Bora just as countless Southerners are still upset over Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. Occasionally, military leaders make strategic errors, football coaches make questionable calls and world class poker players badly misplay hands. So what? We study history to gain wisdom and insight from its lessons, not to use hindsight to second guess every decision. We should also keep in the forefront of our minds the peril that attends counterfactual history, once you change anything, you have, at least potentially, changed everything. There is no way to know all the consequences that accompany the road not taken.
The other recent story concerns the Iraq War. While there are no new revelations, the ongoing Chilcot inquiry, which is intended to be an exhaustive study of Great Britain's involvement in the Iraq War, has once again put the run-up to that war under the microscope. The news concerns statements being made by senior British officials such as Jeremy Greenstock, British ambassador to the U.N. at the time and envoy to Iraq after the invasion. Greenstock testified that the U.S was "hell bent on the use of force" regardless of what anyone else in the world community thought. While other nations and the U.N. itself wanted to give weapons inspectors more time to find evidence that war was justified, the Bush administration saw that as a waste of time and a distraction. The U.N. Security Council was not going to authorize this war based on existing evidence despite the considerable power the U.S. has in this body. President Bush was determined to invade anyway and he managed to convince Great Britain and others to join the U.S. effort.
Unlike the Tora Bora story, this is fair game for harsh criticism because the point of contention is not merely a strategic call but rather an overarching philosophy and a blatant disregard of an inviolable principle. The legitimacy of warfare is predicated on its necessity. War is a tool that must only be used when all other means at our disposal have been deemed ineffective in stopping prohibited activities that carry dire consequences. Justification for war can be likened to a criminal trial where we won't severely punish the accused unless we are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that such punishment is warranted. The Iraq War, on the other hand, can be likened to The Ox-Bow Incident, with George W. Bush playing the role of Major Tetley. If you didn't read The Ox-Bow Incident, read it; you'll thank me later.
