| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
08 Sep 2006 09:06:01 AM |
| Object: |
Do You Feel Safer? |
The administration's war planners are yesterday's men:
They talk tough, but they never learned the lessons of Vietnam, much
less the lessons of 9/11.
Effective counter-terrorism means more than just beating the war
drums.
If we really want to make this nation safer, we need to get serious
about human intelligence -- gained not through torturing the people we
capture but through investing in the linguistic and cultural skills
we'll need to understand the Islamic world.
And we need to address the political grievances that drive ordinary
people to support terror in the first place.
Not interested?
Fine, have some more Kool-Aid.
Just don't try to make the rest of us drink it too.
From The Los Angeles Times, 9/8/06:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-brooks8sep08,1,5500816.column?track=rss
Do You Feel Safer?
By Rosa Brooks
Osama bin Laden's still free, global anti-U.S. feelings are rampant,
our military is stretched thin -- and Bush says we're more secure.
FIVE YEARS after 9/11, the Bush administration has run out of troops,
ideas and political capital.
But there's still plenty of Kool-Aid in the White House fridge.
That's why President Bush was able to assure us this week that
"America is safer" after five years of the war on terror.
Safer? Do you feel safer?
Right after 9/11, America had the world's sympathy.
Since then, anti-U.S. sentiment has increased sharply.
Militant Islam used to be a "niche ideology," as Brookings Institution
fellow Ivo Daalder put it.
But today, thanks to the invasion of Iraq and the Bush
administration's nasty little habit of torturing detainees, militant
Islam is an ideology with millions of adherents.
That doesn't make me feel safer.
Right after 9/11, we had the world's strongest military.
But the administration sidelined our military leaders whenever their
advice was politically inconvenient, and we now have lost more
Americans in Iraq than we lost on 9/11:
at least 2,662 troops and 136 U.S. government contractors.
We're forcing exhausted reservists into back-to-back tours of duty,
and military recruiters are struggling to meet their quotas.
That doesn't make me feel safer.
If anything, the war on terror seems to have been perversely designed
to drive more recruits into Al Qaeda's waiting arms.
On Wednesday, Bush defended what he euphemistically referred to as an
"alternative set of procedures" for detainees who remain "defiant" in
the face of ordinary interrogation methods.
These "alternative" techniques have included mock executions,
"water-boarding" (simulated drowning) and induced hypothermia.
Do we think this is going to win any hearts and minds in the Islamic
world?
______________________________________________________
Not likely
Harry
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| User: "Cass Andra" |
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| Title: Re: Do You Feel Safer? |
08 Sep 2006 10:21:50 AM |
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In article <pfu2g29kfmubcstvm1tuf67apbrha1cn65@4ax.com>, Harry Hope
<rivrvu@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
The administration's war planners are yesterday's men:
They talk tough, but they never learned the lessons of Vietnam, much
less the lessons of 9/11.
Effective counter-terrorism means more than just beating the war
drums.
If we really want to make this nation safer, we need to get serious
about human intelligence -- gained not through torturing the people we
capture but through investing in the linguistic and cultural skills
we'll need to understand the Islamic world.
And we need to address the political grievances that drive ordinary
people to support terror in the first place.
--------------------------------------------------------------
WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF.
WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF.WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT
BUSH HIMSELF.WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF.WE HAVE NOTHING
TO FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF.WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF.WE
HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF.WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH
HIMSELF.WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF.WE HAVE NOTHING TO
FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF.WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF.WE HAVE
NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF.WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH
HIMSELF.WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF.WE HAVE NOTHING TO
FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF.WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF.WE HAVE
NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH HIMSELF.WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT BUSH
HIMSELF.
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