America Has Doubts about Bush's Wars

One of the things that Israel's war against Hezbollah highlighted is that sometimes military adventures cost a great deal more than anything they gain. Israel was fighting Hezbollah but tens of thousands of Lebanese found themselves the target of Israeli military strikes. Right wingers argue that collateral damage is inevitable, particularly if people like Hezbollah hide among civilians but the evidence is clear that Israel was bombing Lebanon from one end of the country to the other. There was an enormous amount of damage not directly tied to fighting Hezbollah. In the first few days, the world was sympathetic to Israel's right to defend itself but Israel's military overreach soon changed that.

Much of the same sort has happened to the United States. Too many wedding parties have been bombed in the last four years. Too many families worried about exactly what they were supposed to do at an American checkpoints have died. Too many innocents have been detained and humiliated. The list is long of blunders made without thinking through the consequences of our policies.

MSNBC has a strange poll that may be the result of not correctly asking the right questions but it is interesting nevertheless:

Doubts about the war on terrorism are growing. Most people worry that the cost in blood and money may be too high, and they don’t think al-Qaida kingpin Osama bin Laden will ever be caught, an AP-Ipsos poll found.

Five years after the attacks of Sept. 11, fully one-third of Americans think the terrorists may be winning, the poll suggests. Worries fed by the war in Iraq have spilled over into the broader campaign against terrorists who directly target the U.S.

Half in the poll question whether the costs of the anti-terror campaign are too great, and even more admit that thought has crossed their mind.

The terrorists are not winning, not in any real sense, though they have clearly won a number of political and public relations battles. What's really going on is that Bush and his advisers don't know what they're doing. Five years ago, most people around the world had a favorable view of the US; those numbers have fallen into negative territory not because the terrorists have clever things to say but because of our actions and our words. Bush, and therefore America, are not trusted very much these days.

And a growing number of Americans doubt that Iraq has much to do with the war on terrorism, or at least the war we thought we were fighting in the months after 9/11. A majority of Americans now believe that somewhere we took a wrong turn.