A Realistic “War on al-Qaida”

As the result of the death of a French citizen at the hands of al-Qaida, France has now announced that it is “at war with al-Qaida.” Oddly, despite being at “war,” France does not appear to have any plans to invade and occupy a Middle Eastern nation.

France is instead seeking to track down the 400 to 500 terrorists that are currently operating in the Sahel region of northern Africa. It appears that France will be working with the other nations in that region, such as Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Algeria, to find the al-Qaida terrorists. France plans to capture, try and punish those terrorists. It sort of makes sense, doesn’t it? If you’re at war with al-Qaida, go get the members of al-Qaida.

The Bush Administration, on the other hand, responded to al-Qaida's 9/11 attack by invading and occupying another sovereign country, Afghanistan, which was not controlled by al-Qaida. (The Bush administration then decided to invade and occupy Iraq, for good measure, but that’s another story.) Perhaps, as the Bushites have said, the controlling force in Afghanistan, the Taliban, refused to hand over al-Qaida. Even it that were true, and some question that it is, why not simply send a force to Afghanistan, capture the al-Quaida forces, which number less than 1000 individuals and leave? The Taliban would never have been able to stop the U.S. forces, which had far superior weaponry.

The Bush Administration did not make a strong effort to work with the Taliban as the French are now working with the governments of Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Algeria. They chose instead to invade Afghanistan and make the Taliban the enemy. And, even after al-Qaida fled Afghanistan, the Bush Administration did not end its occupation of Afghanistan, choosing, instead, to stay and organize a new Afghani government. If we were at war with al-Qaida, why did we not follow the al-Qaida forces to their new sanctuaries, and leave Afghanistan to the Afghanis?

There is no rational answer to any of these questions except to say that war with al-Qaida was not the true reason for our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Was the Bush Administration consistently irrational, or were there other, still hidden, reasons for these two invasions?