9/11---ANOTHER PEARL HARBOR? -

It was quickly established after 9/11 that---while the U.S. had been attacked---we were in ridiculously little danger of actually being invaded. Even al Qaeda is not crazy enough to believe it can invade us. Al Qaeda has clearly stated that its goal is to provoke America since it does not possess the means to invade.

It was wildly inaccurate to call 9/11 “another Pearl Harbor.” That’s why my greatest fear after 9/11 was what the limited mind in the White House would do with all those weapons of mass destruction at his disposal. America’s tendency to overreact scared me more than the attackers themselves.

Imperial Japan was a powerful nation with an Army, a Navy with aircraft carriers and a potent, well-trained Naval Air Force with superior aircraft (at first) and topnotch pilots (initially). Japan’s military was way better than our intelligence had thought. Furthermore, Japan had a crazy-desperate but dangerous plan for conquest of the entire Pacific. Japan rapidly achieved near-total domination of the Pacific and actually occupied the Aleutians for a time. They at least had contingency plans for invading Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor almost wiped out our Pacific Fleet in one operation. The only thing that saved us was that our aircraft carriers were on maneuvers that day. Japanese aircraft armed with bombs and torpedoes (their “Long Lance” torpedo was far superior to our duds at the time) effectively ended the era of the big battleships, jolting the U.S. into the age of aircraft carriers and carrier-protection-support vessels.

Right after Pearl Harbor, Japanese air attacks easily wiped out our air power in the Philippines. Though Pearl Harbor should have given adequate warning, U.S. aircraft in the Philippines were parked in tightly-packed rows to protect them against “sabotage.” They were lined up like ducks in a row---Japanese pilots couldn‘t believe their luck. Across the Pacific the Japanese quickly and systematically wiped out the air, land and sea power of Great Britain and the Dutch as well as the U.S.

While al Qaeda’s destruction of the Pentagon would have been significant, the unprotected civilian targets attacked by a handful of suicide bombers on 9/11 were nothing like the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and the destruction of America’s Pacific bases. The only common denominators were surprise, lousy U.S. intelligence and hysteria.

THE MILITARY FORCES OF AL QUAEDA -

Let us now examine the military capabilities of al Qaeda, with which we are “at war.”

According to our own intelligence estimates, al Qaeda has around 100 fighters in Afghanistan; less than a thousand in Pakistan and maybe a few hundred each in Yemen, Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and Somalia. Al Qaeda in Iraq never had more than 1500 to 3000 fighters---mostly gone now. Currently it is estimated that al Qaeda world-wide would be lucky to field 5,000, and at the very most, 10,000 fighters. Even if we added up all the “sleeper cells” and training camps, the number of al Qaeda worldwide cannot even approach the numbers of U.S. troops stationed in one medium-sized European country.

AL QUAEDA’S MIGHTY ARSENAL OF WEAPONS -

A-Qaeda’s arsenal includes the usual small arms, rocket-propelled grenades, a few unguided rockets and lots of bomb-making materials for their very deadly roadside bombs, car bombs, and of course, underwear bombs. Just lately in Iraq someone has developed heavy, short-range, rocket-propelled “flying bombs” with 60-pound payloads---look for these to show up in Afghanistan. And let’s not forget mortars---these small, deadly and easily transportable weapons are the poor man’s artillery.

Al Qaeda has no naval forces unless you count the outboard-powered raft used in the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. Al Qaeda has no air force---except our own hijacked airliners. They have pickup trucks, scooters and donkeys. If al Qaeda actually had an air force, an army, a navy and nuclear capabilities---with fixed bases and locatable targets---they could easily be destroyed.

Al QAEDA’S ECONOMIC RESOURCES -

Al Qaeda’s “economy” is like a criminal gang---a drug and extortion racket. It receives some revenue from oil-rich Middle Easterners, the opium trade, and whatever support they can extort from poor villagers. Plus, there is whatever U.S. equipment al Qaeda can buy on the black market or steal from the many tons of U.S. arms, munitions and supplies sloshing around the Middle East.

Al Qaeda could, conceivably, purchase various nuclear materials from smugglers but an actual, fissionable “nuclear bomb” is extremely unlikely. We can already see how difficult it is for sovereign nations like North Korea and Iran to develop nuclear devices that actually work; it would be beyond the logistical capabilities of a non-national entity to come up with a nuclear device other than a “dirty” bomb.

The notion that any Middle East government would give al Qaeda more powerful weapons is predicated on those governments being “crazy.” Okay, but there is another factor: Middle East governments with weapons of mass destruction are reluctant to arm al Qaeda because they know full well those weapons could be used against their own regimes. That presumes a deeper level of “crazy” than these wily governments have displayed so far. Therefore, while some nations probably give covert aid to al Qaeda in order to provoke the U.S., that aid is limited so it cannot effectively be used against the benefactor.

U.S. MILITARY AND ANCILLARY RESOURCES -

We have the Army, Navy and Air Force---and the Marines and the Navy with their own air forces. We have weaponry that has cost us trillions. We have spy satellites, high-tech aircraft, drones, helicopters, tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, guided missiles, cruise missiles, smart bombs, aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and all kinds of ships. And more nukes than any other nation on the Planet.

We have special operations forces: Nearly 60,000 elite Army Rangers, Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Special Boat Teams, Air Force Special Tactics Teams, and Marine Corps Special Operations Battalions---all with the latest space age weaponry, transportation and communications systems. Plus unlimited air support for ground and naval forces. We train our elite forces in military academies and specialized training facilities. The U.S. has 800 military bases all over the Planet---including many close to or in places where al Qaeda or its affiliates operate. Our super-bases in Iraq and Afghanistan are virtual city-states---modern Crusader Castles built for enduring occupation.

The U.S. has around 1.4 million military personnel plus over 700,000 in civilian support. The U.S. has some unknown numbers of those high-priced, private, hired guns (like Blackwater now re-branded as “Xe“).

We have “willing coalition” allies in NATO and maybe some other countries. Throw in a few of those despotic governments we love to arm and fund---they are also “allies“ of the moment.

Conservatively speaking, the America military, by its lonesome, enjoys a superiority of about a thousand-to-one in manpower.

AMERICA’S MILITARY WEAKNESS -

The U.S. has a predisposition to fight small groups of militants as if they were conventional military targets. This is wasteful of our military resources---and the inevitable “collateral damage” caused by the profligate use of heavy munitions destroys the goodwill we so desperately need from local populations to effectively fight “militants” and “insurgencies.”

If Bush was the Bomber of Baghdad---Obama is Missile-Man. The numbers of cruise and drone-launched missiles fired into Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere increased exponentially as soon as Barack Obama took office. Our “friends” in those countries are incensed at the civilian casualties caused by these joy-stick guided missile attacks.

Our “intelligence” on the relatively small criminal gang called al Qaeda---from before 9/11 to the present---sucks. The ineptness of the Underwear Bomber was the only thing that just recently saved us from losing an airliner full of people---not the bumbling, stumbling, blind U.S. intelligence with all the billions and billions of dollars our Congress awards them openly and under the table. Our intelligence and surveillance agencies are overwhelmed with electronic data and starved for direct, Human intelligence.

Our chief military weaknesses have nothing to do with any lack of that expensive, high-tech stuff we keep hurling at low-tech insurgents. Indeed, our weakness in this “war” is that we are weighted down by all our high-tech armaments and our dangerous reliance on electronic gadgetry. As the British soldiers said of our military units in Iraq: “Here come the Americans----all geared up and no brains.“

WHAT WAS OUR PURPOSE REALLY? -

If we assume that, after 9/11, the U.S. actually wanted to get the terrorists of al Qaeda---and nothing else but the terrorists---it seems logical that we could have used some combination of our special forces and our regular ground and air capabilities in targeted operations without invading countries such as Iraq. Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with the terrorists and posed no threat to the U.S. Instead of using our military forces like scalpels, the post 9/11 invasions and occupations were overblown and bungled.

Again, assuming that the destruction of al Qaeda was our goal, the U.S. should have taken advantage of offers by Iran and Iraq to help root out the relatively small numbers of al Qaeda “terrorists” right then and there. Even the Taliban were reportedly willing to cooperate with us. In any case, we should have sealed off the border to Pakistan---pronto! That would have been far less of a chore than invading Iraq. The last things we should have said to a World that was actually willing to help us was: “You are either with us or against us”---or that inane, braying, barroom boast: “Bring it on!”

It is true that al Qaeda has been decimated---but not completely and at a terrible cost. Instead of pursuing al Qaeda as an international police action---not some damn-fool total war---the U.S. has waged one of the most useless and costly series of military blunders in modern history. In the process, we have succeeded in making al Qaeda look like supermen.

GOALS, MOTIVATIONS AND AFTERMATH -

Assuming the Bush Administration was not completely stupid, destroying al Qaeda was never their top priority.

If the primary motivations to attack and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq were: to expend and remanufacture weapons, munitions and equipment; to destroy infrastructure and stimulate slipshod rebuilding by Administration-friendly contractors; to destabilize and overthrow the governments of that region; and to bankrupt the U.S. government---then the Middle East campaigns were a rousing success.

However, the most obvious goal---establishing firm control over the energy resources of that region---has still not been achieved and appears to be slipping away.

WHO’S IN CHARGE? -

America’s “Global War On Terror”---if that’s what it really is---was like throwing sledge hammers at flies. And therein lies an obvious clue to the biggest winners in this misbegotten saga---those who produce the big, expensive “sledge hammers.”

America today is dominated by the military-industrial-financial complex. Just take a look at President Obama’s recent “deficit-cutting” proposals. Mandatory military expenditures account for 60 percent of discretionary government spending---just about what the entire rest of the World spends on defense. Any reduction of this debt-and-deficit hog is anathema. Obama’s campaign promised more military spending and it is one of the few pledges he has devotedly and passionately fulfilled. He has, however, broken his promise not to use devious budgetary tricks to disguise the money we use to fund our undeclared wars.

Social Security, social services, air traffic control, farm subsidies, nutrition and National Parks are all due for a “spending freeze” or reductions under the Obama plan. Major cuts are planned for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Meanwhile, the eternal war machine grinds up our national economy---and it‘s not even a real war in any conventional military or political sense.

Just in time to justify sucking the economic lifeblood out of America comes more media fear-mongering. MSNBC and The Washington Post blared the breaking news: al Qaeda “aims to” get weapons of mass destruction. Of course they want weapons of mass destruction. But we already knew that, didn‘t we?

In any case, the U.S. is wasting colossal amounts of money on “security“ and “defense.” Just one example: the government has so few auditors to examine the activities of “contractors” in occupied countries that invoices are routinely approved without scrutiny. According to a story in The Anchorage Daily News (“Audit finds haphazard US oversight of Iraq contract,” 1-25-10) “…a $2.5 billion contract to train Iraqi police, the largest ever managed by the State Department, was supervised by a sole beleaguered contracting officer who was so overwhelmed he simply approved all invoices without question.”

Any military, security, intelligence and surveillance expenditures are not only exempt from deficit-cutting proposals but have also been increased in secret as well as openly---and the immense costs are not even being examined to see that our money is being correctly spent.

What’s the deal here? Is it now considered “unpatriotic” to stop the military-industrial hogs from taking over the farm and spending us into the poorhouse?

LIVING IN QUIVERING FEAR -

What are Americans so afraid of that that they stand idly by or even cheer out loud as our government pours money down the military rat hole?

While terrorists killed about 4000 Americans in the past 8 years, medical mistakes in hospitals killed 800,000. In the past 8 years 240,000 Americans were killed by handguns; 136,000 by drunk drivers; and 65,000 drowned. In 46 States, including Alaska, no one has been killed by terrorists. Alaskans, like most Americans, have almost a zero chance of getting killed in a terrorist attack---yet many live in abject fear of al Qaeda.

Playing the fear card in response to al Qaeda “raids” has worked way too well. When President Bush told Americans to consume their way out of 9/11, he brought forth and played upon the deepest fear of this shallow nation: the fear of losing all the stuff for which we had already hocked our souls.

Rudy Wittshirk