FARAI CHIDEYA, host:
This is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya. On today's Roundtable, a new report says the war in Iraq is making the fight against terrorism even tougher, and a town in Idaho wants to require households to own firearms.
Joining us from our New York bureau are Robert George, editorial writer for The New York Post. Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, professor of globalization and education at New York University is at member station WLIU in Southampton, New York. And at member station WGBH in Boston, Massachusetts, Callie Crossley, social/cultural commentator on the television show Beat the Press in Boston. Welcome to you all. And let me go straight to the first topic.
A new study directly contradicts what President Bush has been saying about the war in Iraq and its role in fighting terrorism. The National Intelligence Estimate says it's become a vehicle for recruiting a new generation of violent extremists. The 30-page report also says the wars weaken the U.S. ability to fight terrorism.
Now this report was completed in April. A 2002 version was used to justify the war in Iraq. So what do we make of this, Callie? You know, one estimate, you know, four years ago says go to war, and this one says, oh guys, you're really in trouble.
Ms. CALLIE CROSSLEY (Commentator, Beat the Press): I think this seems to formalize some of the comments that have been coming in sort of dribs and drabs from military officials - disaffected, I guess I would have to describe them as - saying that we're not conquering the terrorist situation in that we are allowing to sort of gather a gang together and giving them more strength to be anti-U.S.
They've been saying that - we've been hearing these comments now, I would say, over the last year or so from one, from then another. And each time the administration has said, you know, that's just not the case. We are winning the battle.
So to have this report formalize what a lot of folks have been saying is really kind of scary. I think it also addresses something that I thought was quite interesting. In part of the report, one of the persons quoted said that we're really not looking at how these people come to want to be terrorists against the United States. That we've spent so much energy trying to knock them out, trying to get rid of them, trying to kill them, that we're not looking at the process by which they are radicalized and that that's a very important thing. And they cited the Internet as a really big factor in this.
So I think that we are - the fact that this directly contradicts what Bush is saying, but at the same time upholds what a lot of folks have been saying over the last year or so. Though in fairness to the Bush administration, Negroponte, the intelligence chief, has said this does not reflect the entirety of the report and it's taken out of context. So I haven't read the whole report, so I got to give him that.
CHIDEYA: Marcelo, you know, this reminds a little bit of the book 1984 in which two countries, or mega-countries, Eurasia and Oceana, are kind of going against each other in perpetual war. And it seems to me that a report like this says, if I can use that literary reference, that war begets war. I'm not editorializing here but I'm asking you the question: Is that the implication of the report, and if so, what do we do about it?
Professor MARCELO SUAREZ-OROZCO (Professor of Globalization and Education, New York University): If George Orwell were alive today, he'd have plenty of new materials to really create a fantastic narrative about the permanent state of conflict we're in.
In a way what we see here in this report is another conceptual shift in the framing of this military operation. We began with a paradigm of weapons of mass destruction, we continued then with a paradigm of the al-Qaida connection and lastly the idea that the front in Iraq was a central front on the war on terror.
We now in a way - reading this new report that, as Callie said, articulates the thinking of many, many folk in our armed forces, suggests yet another shift. The question becomes as the Internet continues to drive in these new formations, as we continue to see self-generating terror cells really worldwide now, we really need to rethink about the idea of conventional warfare when we are dealing with a paradigm, where we're dealing with a series of processes and dynamics that don't respect any of the fundamental rules of conventional warfare.
This is a very, very sobering report and, as Callie said, this is part of a obviously more ambitious review of the issues. But it seems to me that finally we're speaking truth in Iraq.
CHIDEYA: Robert, I want to go to you. You are someone who works for The New York Post editorial board. And also during the last presidential election, you wrote I guess a personal editorial that talked about why President Bush might not be the best choice to be a repeat president. Why did you write what you wrote, and does it pertain in any way to what has just been revealed or just been discussed?
Mr. ROBERT GEORGE (Editorial Writer, The New York Post): Well, I will say, by the way, Marcelo, I think if Orwell were alive today, contrary to what you said, I don't think he could actually create a more bizarre scenario than we are actually in.
Prof. SUAREZ-OROZCO: You couldn't make it up.
Mr. GEORGE: You couldn't make it up. What I focused on - I wrote a personal column for The New Republic explaining why, from a conservative perspective, I was not supporting the president's reelection. And that was something of course that my colleagues at the editorial board were slightly, shall we say, disagreeing with.
But I tended to focus more on the issue - some issues involving, say, the spending, which was obviously not of a conservative variety, and what I felt were issues involving the Medicare bill and so forth. Particularly, I didn't focus as much per se on the war and the reasons why we went to war as much as what I felt was a failure of holding individuals accountable for errors, particularly Donald Rumsfeld because of the issue of troops.
And the question obviously of intelligence and weapons of mass destruction filtered into that as well. Because you had a question of - obviously, we now know George Tenet said it's a slam-dunk. And I thought that it was very problematic for a president to be allowing, say, both the secretary of defense and the intelligence agencies to have, in my view, failed on some very major aspects involving the war and not - this is something we knew in mid-2000 - and not holding those individuals responsible.
And I think, you know, another two years down the road I think that still holds. And it's interesting that you said that the 2002 estimate was used to, you know, in a sense justify many of the reasons why we went to war. And of course that estimate has now been called into question either from the actual quality of the intelligence or the question of whether there was stove piping, whether the intelligence was manipulated. I mean that's still to be assessed.
But now we have this one in front of us. It's true they say that we still have to figure out - they say not everything is out there, because a lot of it is still classified. It is a sobering question, but we are now almost in a damned if you do/damned if you don't situation.
Because if it is the case that our presence there is fueling more terror, it is also the case though - we are in a position where we can't just automatically pull out, because then the entire country collapses into chaos and that's also our fault as well.
CHIDEYA: Yeah. Well, you know, what it sounds like to me, speaking as an ordinary citizen and not so much a journalist, is we're in deep doo-doo. You know, and so let me ask all of you - starting with you, Callie, briefly because I want to get to some other topics - where do we go from here? There's no policy recommendations in this report, so what needs to happen?
Ms. CROSSLEY: Well, I think the first thing that needs to happen is that we need to recognize and take this as truth, as Marcelo said. Instead of saying, no, no, we're fighting them. We got it. We're under control. We're knocking them out every day. Say okay, all right, let's look at it.
If we're fomenting this kind of radicalization against us now, then how do we address that, how do we look at the process, what do we do? That's where I think where we begin.
CHIDEYA: All right. Robert?
Mr. GEORGE: Well, I think that's, I think that is definitely part of it. And frankly, I think it is actually a good thing that this came out about six weeks or so before the election. Because now we have a - I think there's a real legitimate debate here.
Both Democrats and, in fact, some Republicans who are questioning the direction of the war now have something - have some real material in front of them to which they can engage the administration, and the administration can engage them. The administration wanted to focus on national security. Democrats wanted to focus on Iraq. Now both sides have exactly what they want.
CHIDEYA: Marcelo?
Prof. MARCELO SUÁREZ-OROZCO: We need to take a hard look at the facts on the ground and begin a rational, coherent, and humane policy to bring our troops home, and to try to stabilize the Iraqi regime and have them be the manufacturers of their own future.
CHIDEYA: Robert, I want to turn back to you, because there's this interesting alliance, a new topic. The governor of California and the mayor of New York, who are both Republicans and kind of atypical Republicans, can I say that? You know…
Mr. GEORGE: Yeah, I think that's fair to say.
CHIDEYA: Yeah.
Mr. GEORGE: They both (unintelligible).
CHIDEYA: You know, they've agreed to work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They say they can't wait for the president to take action on climate change. The governor is about to sign a landmark bill mandating a cut in greenhouse gas emissions in California by 25 percent by the year 2020, and Bloomberg - who is the mayor of New York - has put out this five-point program to make New York an environmentally sustainable city.
So, these guys are not the president. They're not in Congress. They are national figures. What can they really do in order, you know, in their specific city and state, but also on a national level?
Mr. GEORGE: Well, I think what you're seeing here is a remake of Twins, with Michael Bloomberg and the Danny DeVito (unintelligible).
(Soundbite of laughter)
CHIDEYA: Oh, you're awful!
Mr. GEORGE: Well, I think what good people…
Ms. CROSSLEY: Good one.
Mr. GEORGE: Thank you. What they both have here are national stages, because, I mean, New York City in certain ways is almost a state unto itself. They both -because of that, they both have their own unique megaphones. California has obviously been taking the lead both in good ways and bad, in the context of being a “green state,” quote/unquote, “green state.” And so it's not surprising that Schwarzenegger would be on board with this.
And Bloomberg, frankly, has also been, you know, doing this little dance about saying, you know, that he's not going to run for president, though he really loves to sort of stoke the speculation that he could launch an independent run. So I think this also drives that.
CHIDEYA: Wait, wait, wait, Robert. Let me just interrupt you. If this is a remake of Twins, are we talking presidential and vice presidential candidates, if the laws change, so people from outside the U.S. - who were born outside the U.S., can run for president?
Mr. GEORGE: Well, it could, it would be very - it would be a very big bipartisan, bicoastal, Twins ticket, indeed. We're going to have to see if the Bostonian-born mayor of New York City and the Austrian-born governor of California can do that.
But I would say, to be slightly more serious, what the mayor is able to do in the context of environment is less - he has less power. I mean, he can make certain kind of suggestions in terms of how he would like this to become an environmentally - this meaning New York City - to be environmentally friendly. But it does not have quite the power that a governor of the largest state in the country does.
But, he definitely does have the power to make it an issue from a rhetorical standpoint, and he seeing the two of them together definitely sends a powerful signal to the rest of the country.
CHIDEYA: Marcelo?
Prof. SUÁREZ-OROZCO: I think the other signal it really sends is the lack of leadership in the domains that are really the most urgent domains, in terms of our domestic policy. The fact that the Congress is not taking initiative on this, the fact that the White House is not taking initiative on these issues leaves a very powerful vacuum that we see here, the twins, let's call them, to really step in…
Mr. GEORGE: I'm going to have to copyright that.
Prof. SUÁREZ-OROZCO: …and develop a voice. So it's another indication to me of the lack of leadership in the Congress, in the White House on these fundamental issues: environment, jobs, security, and so on.
CHIDEYA: Callie, it strikes me that it's not so much a lack of leadership as it is both parties are divided against themselves. And so…
Mr. GEORGE: That's exactly right.
CHIDEYA: …in the Republican Party, for example, you know, you have a division over immigration, and now you have a division over the environment. So what does this really say about, you know, kind of how the political parties cohere?
Ms. CROSSLEY: It says that people are, well those of us who are citizens are sick of it. And this probably is going to be ongoing for some time because I don't think these issues are going to come together because there are such distinct factions within both parties.
But having said that, I would - from a political standpoint, the two of these guys getting together, they're both on the rise politically - wherever they may take it. It may not be to the presidency, but they're definitely on the rise politically. And it's somewhat safe to go up against a person who is on the -going on the downside, because this is a lame duck president.
But I also think it does set them apart and make - and I think people appreciate, someone standing up saying, all right. We believe this is an issue that we have to take some leadership about.
And let's not forget that both California and New York are huge energy consumers. They've got to figure something else out. So why not put yourself in a position - if you're the political folks in charge there - to be out in front and trying to examine some alternatives to what's going on now?
Mr. GEORGE: Well, you know, I also wanted to quickly add in, I'm not necessarily sure if this also automatically is a reflection of a failure of leadership at the federal level. Because from the conservative perspective, we like to see states - we like the idea of the states as being, you know, kind of the incubators of democracy, experimenting on their own on some of these things. And then, if other states adopt those kinds of models, you know, so much the better.
Sometimes it's better for thing to come - to bubble from the state level up, rather than coming from the federal level down.
CHIDEYA: Well…
Ms. CROSSLEY: I think that's true, except if - around certain issues. And you've got to agree that the environment has been one that, you know, there are really distinct differences among conservatives and others about what should be happening there.
Mr. GEORGE: Well, I...
CHIDEYA: Well…
Mr. GEORGE: …agree. You know…
CHIDEYA: …well…
Mr. GEORGE: I'm sorry. Go ahead, Farai.
CHIDEYA: Yeah, I love that we're all agreeing, but I'm going to have to let you guys go.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. GEORGE: On that note of strange (unintelligible).
CHIDEYA: On that note of congeniality.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CHIDEYA: So we've been talking from our New York bureau with Robert George, editorial writer for the New York Post. Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, professor of globalization and education at New York University at member station WLIU in South Hampton. And at member station WGBH in Boston, Callie Crossley, social/cultural commentator on the television show, Beat the Press.
Thanks.
Ms. CROSSLEY: Thank you.
Mr. GEORGE: Thank you.
(Soundbite of music)
CHIDEYA: And so, coming up we've got two guys who have a lot in common: Cullen Jones and Stedman Graham. One is a swimmer and one is an educator and author. They both are breaking barriers on the racial level.
Copyright © 2006 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.