| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
04 Jul 2006 11:41:12 AM |
| Object: |
The finest selection of Republican macho bluster |
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8997.shtml
Losing the war on terror
By BONNIE ERBE
Jul 4, 2006
The following is the finest selection of macho bluster I've had the
privilege to peruse in quite some time.
It's the lead paragraph in a story that ran this past weekend in the
Los Angeles Times, quoting America's top anti-terror showmen:
"President Bush says Democrats want to 'wave the white flag of
surrender' in Iraq. Vice President ***** Cheney accuses the opposition
party's leaders of 'defeatism' in the global war on terrorism.' "
The rhetoric might be comical but for one minor detail: the truth.
The truth was measured last month by the Center for American Progress,
a progressive, nonpartisan think tank.
The center, in tandem with Foreign Policy magazine, set up a gauge of
sorts to measure the efficacy of our "war on terror."
The two organizations queried more than 100 of America's most esteemed
terror and national security experts.
Their findings were not surprising to those who follow the news.
They are only surprising in so far as the men who uttered them had the
gall to do so.
The Center/Foreign Policy team divined a consensus among top experts
about terrorism and U.S. national security:
"A vast majority think that the world today is more dangerous for the
American people. Fewer than two in 10 believe the United States is
winning the war on terror. More than eight in 10 believe we are likely
to face a terrorist attack on the scale of September 11 within the
next 10 years. Over half list Islamic animosity and the Iraq war as
the main reasons why the world is becoming more dangerous. The experts
put nuclear weapons and materials as the top threat, followed closely
by weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as a whole and then terrorism.
Only 4 percent rank Iran as the greatest threat."
If you think Iraq is the only terrorism boot camp our great leaders
have established, think again.
Think Afghanistan.
Yes, we pummeled former Taliban leaders into and through the Pamirs
after 9/11.
But by all media accounts they've regained much of their lost
strength.
They've graduated from low-level insurgency to a growing army of
fighters and are staging new and more ferocious attacks to the point
where they've about taken back southern Afghanistan.
The Chicago Tribune reports, "They have borrowed strategies from Iraqi
insurgents, from suicide bombs to slick propaganda. They have
kidnapped and beheaded reconstruction workers, both foreigners and
Afghans. They have taken over some districts. Last week, the
insurgency gained a boost from al Qaeda's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
who released a videotape calling for all Afghans to rise up against
foreign forces."
How is the Taliban succeeding in recapturing Afghanistan?
President Bush withdrew military resources necessary to keep control
of the country and redeployed them to Iraq.
While weakening the U.S. presence in Afghanistan he stoked radical
Islamic hate of America -- already longstanding and deep -- that the
Taliban are using as an effective recruitment tool.
__________________________________________________________
Ain't Georgie and his fellow thugs great?
Harry
.
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