Gaining Power

On September 12, 2001, there was nearly unanimous support among US citizens to send our troops towards the Middle East to fight the ‘war on terrorism’ and capture the high ranking Al Qaeda officials who organized the devastating attacks of 9/11. Over eight years later, the United States Government still finds itself sending thousands and thousands of troops away from their families, shipping them by the airbus to the Middle East—although it has become quite evident that our incentives in that region were never quite what the public thought.

The United States has the most advanced armed forces in the world. We believed we could win any battle we chose to fight. Why, then, were Osama bin Laden and, his right hand man, Ayman al-Zawahri not captured when our troops had them cornered in a mountain range in December of 2001? Even knowing these two men were trapped in the mountains of Tora Bora, the United States had a mere 100 troops surrounding them—not nearly enough to prevent an escape.

The George W. Bush administration used the surge of patriotism created by 9/11 to justify its personal agenda—the fall of Saddam Hussein. Prompted by the scare Iraq was hiding nuclear bombs, Dubya elected to focus troops in Iraq using misleading arguments that victory in Iraq would defeat Al Qaeda along with Saddam Hussein.

The senate recently came out with a commission saying that since December 2001, Osama bin Laden has remained a prominent figure in the insurgency group, and has gained increasing power. His presence, despite American opposition, continues to recruit more and more converts to Al Qaeda. Simply put, bin Laden and his group of insurgents remain a huge direct threat to the United States.

Do any political philosophers give government the right to go behind citizens’ backs and stress one thing, while their actions attempt to achieve a different goal? We have yet to read of any philosophy merely coming close to this very anti-democratic stance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/world/asia/29torabora.html?ref=asia