The One Percent Solution
posted by TheDon
Ronald Suskind’s The One Percent Doctrine is out in paperback, and it is being re-examined by the right. The One Percent Doctrine is a philosophy espoused by Dick Cheney in the aftermath of 9/11 which says basically that if there is a 1% chance that a country will attack us or acquire WMD, then we have to treat it as a certainty that they will and attack first. These bed-wetters, newly frightened by terror attacks in London, are openly asking if the current policy of OPD is a good idea (they tend to think yes). If we can stop these scary brown people who don’t even believe in the baby Jesus by killing other brown people who don’t believe in the baby Jesus, well, that seems fair.

This conversation, while not entirely useless, misses the point entirely. Asking if the OPD is proper beggars the real question. The real question is this: “Is the One Percent Doctrine really driving US foreign policy?”. I don’t think so, I think it’s just cover for whatever actions they want to take. Any proposition, no matter how nutty, can be argued to have a 1% possibility of happening.

OPD is not the reason we attacked Iraq, it’s not the reason we are going to attack Iran, it’s not why I can’t carry shaving cream on a flight, it’s not why we have GITMO, it’s not why we are being wire-tapped, it’s not why every move we make electronically is being tracked. If you’re scoring at home, the answers are: oil, oil, spread fear, small penises, blackmail, marketing opportunities. Not OPD.

A country truly driven by OPD would have teamed up with India to jump Pakistan, and then teamed up with Saddam Hussein to knock out Saudi Arabia and with Israel against whomever was next. It would have secured all of its borders and ports and inspected all the food coming in from around the world. It would have spent every red cent it had in the bank to lock up the loose nuclear material around the world. It would have encouraged and helped the Russians knock out the Chechen uprising. We would have bribed a bunch of governments to help us monitor their problem areas (I’m looking at YOU, Philippines!)

We did none of those things (except the bribing part), or anything else which suggests that we are serious about fighting terrorism. We scared our citizens, killed other countries’ citizens, and pissed away a river of money and goodwill, with the end result being a lot more terrorists in the world who are willing to die to kill an American.

So is OPD a good doctrine for us? No, of course not. It’s sociopathy on an international level, but that’s not the point. It’s NOT our doctrine, never was, never will be. It’s just an excuse for whatever criminal activity springs from the well-fertilized minds of this administration.