Townsend spins in circles

July 18, 2007

Yesterday, White House Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend held a press briefing, ostensibly to tell reporters about the new National Intelligence Estimate, but more accurately, to put the Bush gang’s spin on the devastating report. There was one exchange that was particularly important (TPM has a clip).

CNN’s Ed Henry, to his credit, pointed out that Bush was specifically warned, before he launched an invasion of Iraq, that the war would likely embolden al Qaeda and give the terrorists “more opportunities to expand its influence.” Sure enough, Henry noted, the NIE highlights the fact that al Qaeda has made gains thanks to our ongoing presence in Iraq and is anxious to take advantage of those gains by attacking Americans. “So doesn’t this report show that the war in Iraq has made America less safe?”

After Townsend took part of the NIE out of context, this was the exchange:

TOWNSEND: These are people [AQI] who have a relationship with al Qaeda core. These are people who are in Iraq, attacking us there, and they’ve made Iraq their end-all, be-all. They don’t —

Q It says, to energize a broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and recruit and indoctrinate operatives. You don’t consider those gains for al Qaeda?

MS. TOWNSEND: Well, there’s no question that their objective. There’s no question, in any war, whether it’s this war or historical wars, that our enemy seeks to take advantage for propaganda purposes of activities on the battlefield and actions on the battlefield. This doesn’t —

Q The President was warned before the war that that would happen, that al Qaeda would try to use the war for recruitment, to expand its influence.

MS. TOWNSEND: Okay, so what’s the answer to that? So we should leave them and we should not disturb our enemies anywhere in the world because they may use it for propaganda value? I don’t think so.

At first blush, this might even sound reasonable. Townsend is effectively saying, “We’re making al Qaeda mad. Of course we’re making al Qaeda mad. We want to make al Qaeda mad. Even if the terrorists try to use our confrontation for propaganda, we’ll keep hitting them anyway.”

It all sounds perfectly persuasive until you stop for a moment and appreciate the fact that Townsend was speaking in circles.

Josh Marshall, who cut Ed Henry slack for not being able to parry Townsend’s spin in real-time, explained that the White House line doesn’t apply to Iraq at all.

This would be a decent response if people were making it as an argument against our invasion of Afghanistan, because that was after all al Qaeda’s base of operation. We were attacking them where they were. So it would be silly or at least a weak argument to say we shouldn’t have attacked Afghanistan just because al Qaeda would use the attack as a propaganda tool against us. As Townsend’s logic suggests, sure they might use it for their media campaign. But that’s far outweighed by the benefit of destroying their sanctuary.

But that’s the heart of the issue, the one Townsend dodges and which Henry unfortunately didn’t press. Iraq wasn’t a sanctuary or recruiting or training ground for al Qaeda before we invaded. This has now been as definitively established as proving a negative ever can be. So, contra Townsend, it really is a zero sum game for us since we did nothing to hurt al Qaeda by invading Iraq — they weren’t there and had no prospect of being there. But we did help them almost immeasurably by giving the whole organization a new lease on life for recruitment, fundraising and more. And the rising unpopularity of the United States in the Muslim world because of the invasion has undoubtedly played a large role in preventing Pervez Musharraf from keeping al Qaeda from reestablishing itself in Pakistan.

Exactly. Perhaps Townsend understands game theory, perhaps not, but this is a dynamic in which we engaged in a confrontation which benefited our enemy twice — we backed off pursuit of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, giving the network a chance to regroup and grow stronger, and we foolishly launched an unnecessary war that ended up making al Qaeda’s recruiting and fundraising easier. We lose more of what we want, they gain more of what they want. It’s almost the definition of a zero-sum game.

And getting back to Ed Henry’s question, Bush was warned about the likelihood of this specific outcome, but he launched the war anyway.

As Josh concluded, “The White House has no excuse and no answer.”

“So we should leave them and we should not disturb our enemies anywhere in the world because they may use it for propaganda value?”

There’s a different possible response: This isn’t about propaganda value; it’s about whether we’re fighting effectively against our enemies. Apparently we’re not.

  • No, it’s worse than zero-sum. Osama hated both the Saudi regime for not being sufficiently zealous, and Iraq, for being relatively secular, and us, for being infidels, for being in Saudi Arabia and for being a bad cultural influence.

    With the bombing he wanted to provoke an intemperate response that would make it harder for anyone to be a pro-western and moderate moslem.

    With our involvement in Iraq, our reputation and our influence are in tatters. The Republicans’ intemperate response not only did away with pro-western moderates in the islamic world, but it also wiped out the principal secular Arab government and caused us to repudiate our own principles. Bush handed Osama a trifecta. Also, by humbling the US, Al Qaida was more than legitimized in the eyes of unhappy moslems, and Bush gave them a combined recruiting tool, fund-raising campaign, source of cheap munitions (Al Qaqa), and training ground.

  • Actually, I don’t think Josh Marshall understands game theory, or at least the concept of a “zero-sum game”.

    A perfect example would be the options market. Someone who buys a call option makes money only at the expense of the person who wrote the call option (sold it). The buyer’s profit is the writer’s loss. Their combined profits sum to zero. A zero-sum game does not permit win-win situations. One player wins only by another losing.

    Josh seems to have meant there was no possible up-side for us. That’s not what a zero-sum game means.

  • This administration has been giving us false choices for so long that a lot of people have forgotten that there are other – smarter – choices available. For the administration, the choice was “fight them over there, so we don’t have to fight them here,” but there are other options besides “fighting them over there” that could result in our not fighting them here – but the administration has proceeded on the basis that that is the only choice.

    Townsend plays along, taking valid points and using them to construct more false choices. One of the consequences of our presence in Iraq is that al-Qaeda has used it as a recruiting tool, but that is a consequence of a choice – it was never the choice itself. And it still is not the choice in deciding whether we should or should not take action or implement policies; the ability for the “enemy” to use the choices we make as a propaganda tool will always exist.

    The failure of the president’s policies has to do with basing them on false choices, and not on sound reasoning and intelligence, and then constructing new false choices as each one, in turn, failed to turn things around. When one begins from a false premise, there comes a point where one has to choose whether to abandon that premise and work from the truth in order to serve the greater good, or compound the consequences of that premise in order to serve one’s ego.

    And I think we know which choice Bush made.

  • N. Wells nailed it pretty well in #2.

    I would add that Bush has utterly destroyed our ability to threaten large-scale ground-based force for the forseeable future. This fact alone destabilizes the entire globe. In addition, they have soured the American people to the concept of nation building, when failed states are one of the primary roots of terrorism. (the main roots of course are our own kleptocratic corporate policies). By undermining the idea of nation building, we probably doom Afghanistan to a repeat of the Taliban.

    I would also underline that we did long-term damage to our alliances with countries who would otherwise be very helpful in the “war on terror” (and in other battles as well). By letting Rumsfeld and Cheney piss all over the Geneva Convention, we now have allies who question if they should give us intelligence or hand over prisoners for interrogation.

    There’s a whole slew of ways that Bush made us less safe. I’d like to know if there’s any evidence that he made us more safe in any way shape or form.

  • I do not accept the original premise…that we are in Iraq to fight terrorists or that terrorists are the main purpose or focus of our occupation. Imagine that al qaeda and terrorists are merely distractions for the real agenda. Secondary to stealing the resources of the ME.

    It’s as bad as WMD. None here, no not under there etc. bull.
    Let’s talk terrorists all day is like…The apaches are attacking the settlers and let’s go wipe out their village etc etc etc…while actually going up to their mine and stealing their gold. American imperialism to steal the resources of other countries NEED terrorists to accomplish that goal. So stay afraid and stay focused on the terrorists and let the thieves get on with their business which comes under the heading of “protecting American interests abroad”.

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