January 20, 2006
What Kind of War Doesn't Allow for a Truce?
Victory in the War on Terror
By BRIAN J. FOLEY
http://www.counterpunch.org/foley01202006.html
We're told that a new Osama Bin Laden audiotape has emerged, and
America's Most Wanted said he would like to strike a deal with
the US: Let's stop fighting. You leave us alone, we'll leave you
alone.
The Bush Administration rejected the offer out of hand. "We
don't negotiate with terrorists," Vice President Cheney said.
Instead, we have to "destroy them."
No surprise there. We're at war. The 9/11 attacks were an "act
of war," the president insisted. They weren't a crime to be
dealt with by using police and courts. This was war,
full-bodied, bomb-your-enemy-and-invade-his-capital-city war.
But wait. In full-out wars, the combatants negotiate truces.
They stop fighting if they can achieve their goals by political
means. Indeed, the government has a duty to use its
temporarily-increased powers, its "war powers," to bring the war
to a close as quickly as possible.
Osama bin Laden just offered the US what it says it wants. Most
Americans want to end the war on terror. Most Americans want to
be free of the fear of another big terrorist attack. Isn't that
what we're fighting for?
Bin Laden says that the US should withdraw its troops from Iraq
and Afghanistan. Americans have said they don't want the war to
continue indefinitely. Why should we? The war is not benefiting
us. It is killing us and our children. It is putting us all at
the risk of further terrorist attacks. It is bleeding dry the
government that is supposed to serve us, causing us to get less
and less for our hard-earned tax dollars. The deficit that the
federal government is running up will burden our children and
grandchildren.
In short, we've won. Most Americans initially supported the "War
on Terror" as a way of reducing the threat of terrorist attacks.
They do not support it so that we could control the oil and
other resources in the Arab world. The war's not about that, its
supporters have (often angrily) maintained.
If we ended the war now, the president could focus on things he
says he cares about: education, jobs, clean energy, the
environment. He could re-direct toward these causes the billions
of dollars (our dollars) that are being shoveled into the
furnace of war. Call it a "Victory Dividend."
The president has been given a rare second chance: The Taliban
offered to turn bin Laden over after 9/11, if the US would
present evidence that bin Laden perpetrated those attacks. The
president refused. More than four years later, all of the
president's unmanned aircraft, Tomahawk missiles, 2000-lb bombs,
and overworked and underpaid troops still can't catch bin Laden.
We've killed many others, though, including tens of thousands of
innocent men, women and children. We've tortured. We've built
secret prisons and run a gulag in Cuba. Yet after all this
effort and all this money, bin Laden is still capable of
attacking our homeland. We aren't even prepared: all sorts of
soft spots remain vulnerable.
To refuse even to negotiate is irresponsible and reckless, and
unrealistic. We cannot destroy an invisible enemy, no matter how
many bombs we drop, no matter how many civil rights we erase. We
will merely impoverish ourselves, and our brutality will only
win the enemy more recruits--who will attack us again and again.
A truce is what we need. It is better than anything we could
have hoped for in the dark days after 9/11.
We should not let the president pull defeat and misery out of
the jaws of victory.
BRIAN J. FOLEY is a professor at Florida Coastal School of Law.
The views expressed are his own. He can be reached at
brian_j_foley@yahoo.com.
Visit his website at
http://www.brianjfoley.com
---------------------
Here's a link to my article from today, "What Kind of War
Doesn't Have a Truce? - Victory in the War on Terror"
http://www.counterpunch.org/foley01202006.html
APFN
wrote:
How the US Media is Conspiring to Promote War # 3 —Cheryl Seal,
http://disc.server.com/Indices/149495.html
A message to Usama Bin Laden from the American Mujahideen Ar
—Judah Ben-Hur, Thu Jan 19 13:03
Bin Laden Offers US `Truce' Linked to Iraq, —Osama Bin Laden,
Thu Jan 19 13:14
Bin Laden offers Americans truce —ALJAZEERA NEWS (ENGLIST), Thu
Jan 19 13:31
================================
Bin Laden offers Americans truce
In an audio tape broadcast on Aljazeera, Osama bin Laden has
warned that al-Qaida was preparing an attack very soon, but also
offered Americans a "long-term truce".
FULL STORY
• Al-Zawahiri: Bin Ladin still in charge
ALJAZEERA NEWS (ENGLIST)
http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage
In an audio tape broadcast on Aljazeera, Osama bin Laden has
warned that al-Qaida was preparing an attack very soon,
but also offered Americans a "long-term truce". FULL STORY
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/593298A0-3C1A-4EB4-B29D-EA1A9678D922.htm
In an audio tape broadcast on Aljazeera, Osama bin Laden has
warned that al-Qaida was preparing an attack very soon, but also
offered Americans a "long-term truce".
"The new operations of al-Qaida has not happened not because we
could not penetrate the security measures. It is being prepared
and you'll see it in your homeland very soon," the voice
attributed to bin Laden said, apparently addressing Americans.
But the voice on the tape, which appeared to be aimed at the
American public, also offered a truce: "We do not mind
establishing a long-term truce between us and you."
The tape, broadcast on Thursday but dated to December last year,
comes after a year of silence from the al-Qaida leader.
"This message is about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how
to end those wars," it began.
"It was not my intention to talk to you about this, because
those wars are definitely going our way.
"But what triggered my desire to talk to you is the continuous
deliberate misinformation given by your President [George] Bush,
when it comes to polls made in your home country which reveal
that the majority of your people are willing to withdraw US
forces from Iraq.
Americans want peace
"We know that the majority of your people want this war to end
and opinion polls show the Americans don't want to fight the
Muslims on Muslim land, nor do they want Muslims to fight them
on their (US) land.
"The new operations of al-Qaida has not happened not because we
could not penetrate the security measures. It is being prepared
and you'll see it in your homeland very soon"
Osama bin Laden
"But Bush does not want this and claims that it's better to
fight his enemies on their land rather than on American land.
"Bush tried to ignore the polls that demanded that he end the
war in Iraq.
"We are getting increasingly stronger while your situation is
getting from bad to worse," he told the US, referring to poor US
troop morale and the huge economic losses inflicted by the war.
"The war in Iraq is raging and the operations in Afghanistan are
increasing."
Truce offer
"In response to the substance of the polls in the US, which
indicate that Americans do not want to fight Muslims on Muslim
land, nor do they want Muslims to fight them on their land, we
do not mind offering a long-term truce based on just conditions
that we will stick to.
"We are a nation that Allah banned from lying and stabbing
others in the back, hence both parties of the truce will enjoy
stability and security to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, which
were destroyed by war.
"In response to the substance of the polls in the US, which
indicate that Americans do not want to fight Muslims ... we do
not mind offering a long-term truce based on just conditions
that we will stick to"
Bin Laden
"There is no problem in this solution, but it will prevent
hundreds of billions from going to influential people and
warlords in America - those who supported Bush's electoral
campaign - and from this, we can understand Bush and his gang's
insistence on continuing the war."
Addressing Americans again, he said: "If your desire for peace,
stability and reconciliation was true, here we have given you
the answer to your call."
Bin Laden, who had not been heard of since a 27 December 2004
audiotape in which he anointed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most
wanted man, as al-Qaida's leader in Iraq, also said his network
was winning the war against the US.
"I would like to tell you that everything is going to our
advantage and the number of your dead is increasing, according
to Pentagon figures."
Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's deputy, said in a September
videotape that his leader was still alive and leading the jihad
against the West.
Aljazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/081F5547-A5A6-429B-A53D-080568E52A5A.htm
