What has the Bush Administration done to make America more secure since 9/11?

Are we safer?

Perhaps somewhat -- but serious questions still remain...

-Terror attacks are up ---

-Al Qaeda's leadership has regrouped ---

-Iraq remains in a civil war...while its government is fracturing further...

-Afghanistan remains a Taliban/Al Qaeda haven...

-The 9/11 Commission recommendations have yet to be implemented...

A Resurgent Menace
U.S. spy agencies say al Qaeda's top leaders, once on the run, have regrouped
By Kevin Whitelaw
Posted 5/6/07

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles...qaeda_print.htm

When President Bush talks about Osama bin Laden these days, it's usually to rally support for the U.S. effort in Iraq. Last month, he told an audience that bin Laden and his al Qaeda network "have made it clear they want to drive us from Iraq to establish safe haven in order to launch further attacks." But over the past year, U.S. intelligence agencies have completely revised their assessment of al Qaeda and reached an alarming conclusion: Bin Laden already has a safe haven-in Pakistan-and may be stronger than ever.

The shift is dramatic. Two years ago, when the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, went to Capitol Hill to deliver his annual threat assessment, he described al Qaeda leaders as battered and isolated. "Osama bin Laden and his senior leadership no longer exercise centralized control and direction," he told Congress. The more serious threat, he added, was a burgeoning network of individual extremists and entrepreneurial cells inspired by bin Laden. That judgment remained essentially unchanged through early 2006.

When the current head of DIA, Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, visited Capitol Hill this year, he warned that the group's leaders are resilient and are actively plotting from their new base in Pakistan. "Al Qaeda retains the ability to organize complex, mass-casualty attacks and inspire others," Maples said. "Al Qaeda has consistently recovered from losses of senior leadership."

Damage control. The spy agencies' shift was driven by al Qaeda's resurgence as well as new information they had obtained about its deep involvement in recent terrorist plots. Privately, U.S. officials concede that they had overestimated the damage they had inflicted on al Qaeda's network. The captures of successive operational commanders, including 9/11 planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, amounted only to temporary setbacks; they were replaced with disturbing ease. "We understand better how al Qaeda is withstanding the offensive that was launched against it in 2001 and later," says a senior U.S. government official.

Iraq has, of course, been an undeniable boon for al Qaeda, both as a battleground and a rallying cause. But when it comes to exporting terrorism, U.S. intelligence is more worried today about the badlands of western Pakistan. That's where bin Laden has succeeded in reconstituting a safe haven after several years on the run. The rugged tribal provinces have long been ungoverned, and a controversial truce that the government of Pakistan signed last September with the tribes to go after al Qaeda has backfired. "There are indications that, due in large part to the truce, al Qaeda operatives can operate with a higher degree of impunity," says a U.S. counterterrorism official. "They have a greater sense of security and freedom of movement and can communicate more easily with fellow militants in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere." Indeed, despite being one of the world's most wanted men, Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's deputy, managed to issue at least 15 propaganda missives last year.

The tribal areas are now riddled with a burgeoning network of al Qaeda training camps. "We're seeing less brick and mortar operations in terms of training and more transient facilities that al Qaeda uses for its training and for operations planning purposes," says a U.S. intelligence official. "Much of their training is opportunistic-whatever they can do, whenever they can do it, wherever they can do it." There is apparently no shortage of trainers, or occasions for students to practice their lessons in neighboring Afghanistan, where al Qaeda has been forging closer ties with the revitalized Taliban.

Pakistan has been an American ally against al Qaeda, but U.S. officials are increasingly frustrated by its inability-or unwillingness-to crack down in the tribal regions. "The Pakistanis do just enough to avoid jeopardizing U.S. support," says Daniel Byman, a former CIA analyst who teaches at Georgetown University. U.S. options for operating there are very limited: "You would put [Pakistani President Pervez] Musharraf at risk, and you would face a heavily armed not only adversary but population," says a senior U.S. intelligence official.

There was one event in particular last year that prompted the intelligence community to rethink al Qaeda. Authorities in Britain last summer disrupted a plot to down airliners bound for the United States using liquid explosives. At the time, experts said that the sophisticated plan to simultaneously hit multiple targets bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda. Now, a senior U.S. government official tells U.S. News that the liquid explosives plot has been traced back conclusively to "midlevel operational elements of al Qaeda" in Pakistan. Another concern: The explosives could have worked, suggesting that al Qaeda has managed to replace the bomb makers it has lost. "What the British plot showed us was that they had people to backfill and people who were pretty smart," the official adds. "This was pretty damn clever."

British investigators also found that despite initial conclusions to the contrary, earlier plots like the July 2005 London subway bombings were also planned with the active participation of al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan. "In case after case, the hand of core al Qaeda can be clearly seen," Peter Clarke, Scotland Yard's counterterrorism chief, said in a recent speech. Two of the subway bombers-along with the leader of a group of five British citizens convicted last week of plotting to blow up a nightclub and power plants in London with fertilizer bombs-allegedly attended training camps together in Pakistan and met Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a senior al Qaeda figure now in U.S. custody at Guantánamo Bay.

"Conveyor belt." At the same time, the broader movement inspired by al Qaeda has only grown bigger, largely because of the group's powerful propaganda machine. Bin Laden and Zawahiri have been able to fill in the gaps between their megaplots with a rising stream of smaller-scale, homegrown attacks. "You could have hoped that we would have a serial war-that as al Qaeda declined, you could focus on its affiliates and the homegrowns," says the senior U.S. intelligence official. "I think now what we see is a parallel war, which is harder to fight, obviously."

The State Department issued a report last week warning about the emergence of a terrorist "conveyor belt" that seeks to radicalize alienated minorities and drive them toward violence. Overall, the report found that terrorist attacks worldwide jumped by more than 25 percent last year over 2005, with fatalities from those attacks rising by 40 percent.

The news is not entirely bad. In several countries with well-functioning governments and powerful security forces, al Qaeda has run into trouble. Two weeks ago, for example, authorities in Saudi Arabia announced that more than 170 suspected terrorists have been arrested in recent months as part of a plot to target oil fields and other targets. "The franchise in Saudi Arabia has been defeated," says Bruce Riedel, a veteran CIA analyst now with the Brookings Institution. "In Egypt, it never got off the ground. In Indonesia, there was a big threat in 2002 and 2003, but it seems to have lost momentum."

Even in these places, the success could be temporary. "It's not like they've defeated the thought," warns the senior U.S. intelligence official. "It's just that the capabilities of these cells to execute has been really damaged."

This story appears in the May 14, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.

Print | E-mail Nation & World | Health | Money & Business | Education | Opinion | Photos & Video | Rankings Copyright © 2007 U.S.News & World Report, L.P. All rights reserved.

Well -- if you want to remove a hornet's nest:

1. Wait until dark. Dress in sting-proof clothes to the degree possible. Have several cans of wasp killer. Know where the nest is in the dark, and don't use a flashlight, or if you have to use one, use a red-filtered flashlight and don't shine it directly at the nest. Make sure you have a clear path to safety in case they all come out. Spray the nest and keep spraying unless too many get past the spray and come after you. Direct the spray at the opening (but generally soak the whole nest) and don't let up unless you must beat a hasty retreat.

2. In the middle of the day, start throwing rocks at the nest until you knock it down, or you are stung to the point where you have to quit.

Mr. Jim...that's one way to do it...

May 8, 2007
Answering Al Qaeda
By CLARK KENT ERVIN
Washington
NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED

MORE than five years have passed since terrorism struck our country. Some say this is no surprise. After all, since then we have reorganized the government and created an agency dedicated to protecting us from another attack — the Department of Homeland Security. We have spent billions of dollars to better secure potential targets. We have dislodged Al Qaeda from its sanctuary in Afghanistan, and killed or captured scores of its followers around the globe.

Perhaps another strike on the country is unlikely, but I very much doubt it. From everything we know, Al Qaeda is as determined as ever to attack us at home, and it remains as capable as ever of doing so. While many of its operatives have been killed or captured since 9/11, the supply of young people who are willing and even eager to attack Americans seems limitless.

Our disastrous misadventure in Iraq has only increased that desire. Al Qaeda has reconstituted itself in Pakistan and is trying to reclaim Afghanistan. It is only marginally harder for terrorists to enter the United States now than it was before 9/11, and once they’re inside our borders the potential targets are infinite. Many of those targets are more secure today, but not to the degree they should be.

As if we needed a reminder that another 9/11 remains a real threat, let’s look at what happened just last week: Another chilling videotape from Osama bin Laden’s top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, appeared. The State Department acknowledged that attacks worldwide are on the rise. Five Britons with links to Al Qaeda were sentenced for plotting spectacular attacks in their country, highlighting the danger of “homegrown” terrorism here as well. And the former C.I.A. director George Tenet maintained that “Al Qaeda is here and waiting.”

We can never make ourselves invulnerable to terrorism. But certain steps would reduce our vulnerability to as close to zero as possible. Among those steps should be these:

Aviation

• Install “backscatter” machines (being tested) at every airport checkpoint in the country. These X-ray-like devices reveal guns and knives on passengers’ bodies or in their clothes that screeners often miss.

• Deploy at every airport checkpoint multiview X-ray machines that automatically rotate passengers’ carry-on bags so screeners can see them from every angle, improving their ability to spot concealed weapons.

• Install explosive-detection technologies at every airport checkpoint to spot trace explosives on passengers’ bodies and bags.

• Redouble efforts to develop technologies to detect liquid explosives.

• Inspect 100 percent of the cargo in passenger planes.

• Ensure that only Americans work at airports and that all workers are screened each time they approach a checkpoint, hangar, tarmac or similar area.

Seaports

• Inspect (ideally before they reach our shores) 100 percent of the cargo ships bound for United States ports for radiation to detect any concealed weapon of mass destruction.

Borders

• Triple the number of Border Patrol Agents, and supplement their efforts with sensors, cameras and unmanned aerial vehicles that are actually deployed and work.

• End the visa-waiver program, which enables terrorists to reduce their chances of being caught at legal ports of entry by using passports from visa-waiver countries like Britain and France to bypass the scrutiny that visa applicants have to undergo.

• Rededicate the Department of Homeland Security to the goal of adding an exit feature to the automated border entry system, so we know whether terrorists who slipped into the country have left.

Mass Transit

• Provide money for mass transit authorities to deploy armed police patrols, bomb-sniffing dogs and technology, surveillance cameras, public awareness campaigns and random bag searches permanently, not simply during heightened states of alert.

Intelligence

• Ensure that the intelligence community provides the Department of Homeland Security with any information concerning threats against the country and that the department disseminates that information quickly to relevant state and local government officials, first responders and private businesses.

Preparedness

• Ensure that, in the event of an attack, there is a clear chain of command among the federal, state and local governments; interoperable communications among first responders; supplies of food, water and medicine; and clear, workable evacuation plans.

It is only a matter of time before another catastrophic attack is attempted. The sooner we take the steps outlined above the less likely such an attempt is to succeed.

Clark Kent Ervin, the former inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, is the director of the Homeland Security Initiative at the Aspen Institute and the author of “Open Target: Where America Is Vulnerable to Attack.”

Since 9/11, US citizens have progressivly felt less safe and more affraid of their own shodow
up untill the last election. Since just before the election, this pervasive fear has been leveling off...
and Individual Persons are developing more of a Rights Bearing attitude and thus able to come
together in search of Community. We are becoming empowered by overcomming our fear and
yes, we are finnaly safer, after overcomming all the Fear Mongering.

It's not any safer when the people who perpetrated it control the U.S. government.

U.S. losing battle for Muslim hearts and minds, critics say
By Philip Dine
POST-DISPATCH WASHINGTON BUREAU
Tuesday, May. 08 2007

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/emaf.nsf/...62572D50010B4D4

WASHINGTON — As debate continues over the war in Iraq, the United States
appears to be faltering on another front: the battle for hearts and minds in
the Muslim world.

In the effort known as public diplomacy — winning friends through good works
and international public relations — the U.S. appears to be losing to radical
Islamists, critics say.

One of the chief critics is Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., who returned
Monday from a brief trip to Iraq with other congressional Republicans.

Bond said he saw a mosque that soldiers had rebuilt, calling it the "type of
assistance in Iraqi communities that is critical to winning the broader war on
terror."

But he doesn't think the administration is doing enough to publicize such
efforts in the Islamic world.

"We can't win in this war if there isn't a strong voice out there saying what
the United States is trying to do," he said in an interview last week.

Tom Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission, agreed.

"Right now our image in the Arab world and the rest of the world is that of a
man in a tank," Kean said. "Instead of opening libraries in that part of the
world, we've been closing them, cutting exchanges, reducing educational
programs."

Ken Gude of the Center for American Progress says the U.S. has done "a
staggeringly bad job" of explaining itself to the rest of the world. For
example, he says the U.S. failed to capitalize on its newfound popularity in
the areas engulfed by the 2004 South Asia tsunami by not explaining to other
Muslim nations what it had done to help and why, and then responded
insufficiently to the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan.

Others cite more examples:

— The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction recently
reported that many Army Corps of Engineers projects were poorly designed or
maintained or had suffered from looting. But the corps acknowledges that even
when projects are successful, it has not managed to effectively communicate
that to the Iraqi or American public.

— A new report for the Senate Homeland Security Committee says extremist groups
are making sophisticated use of tools such as the Internet to recruit and
train, appeal for donations, and spread their radical ideology and message of a
clash of civilizations.

— Lagging resources and infighting within the government are hampering radio
and television broadcasts to Muslim countries. Some U.S. legislators contend
that programs have so little oversight that radicals are using them to spread
anti-American sentiment.

— Agricultural and land grant programs have not been established in
Afghanistan, a missed opportunity to help improve life for struggling Afghanis
and show the benefits of an alliance with the United States.

— A report by the General Accountability Office found shortcomings, including
substandard language ability of diplomats that prevents them from interacting
with people in countries where anti-American sentiment is high.

'War with Islam'

Favorability ratings for the U.S. are plummeting around the Middle East and
Muslim world. A recent poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org and the University of
Maryland found that in four Muslim countries whose governments are friendly to
the U.S. — Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan and Indonesia — an average of 79 percent of
people believe the U.S. seeks to "weaken and divide the Islamic world" and
control Middle East oil. The poll's editor says most Muslims "perceive the
United States as being at war with Islam."

Bond is a strong supporter of the Iraq war but says more must be done to enlist
broad support among people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia and throughout
the Muslim world.

"We've got a whole lot of government agencies stalking off in different
directions, but not one of them talking strategically. Nobody's focused on it,"
Bond says.

Bond has met separately with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Karen
Hughes, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs; they
cited budgetary constraints or limits on their authority, he says. Bond also
has spoken to Afghan officials and has scheduled a congressional hearing on
public diplomacy in two weeks.

Hughes' spokeswoman, Rena Pederson, outlined a number of programs Hughes has
recently initiated, including an outreach to young people abroad "before their
views get hardened" and a rapid response unit that every morning alerts senior
U.S. officials of "what is driving world news." Hughes also is developing a
"communications counterterrorism center" in which State Department officials
will work with Pentagon and CIA counterparts "to react more quickly in a more
coordinated fashion" to get the American message out as events require.

Policy, or PR?

Bond rejects any link between the Iraq war and a lowered U.S. standing around
the world, and adds: "Pull out of Iraq precipitously, and you can really watch
it do a nose dive," he said.

The point is to focus on positive programs, he says, such as a $20 million land
grant college consortium for Afghanistan he is working on with Sen. Barbara
Mikulski, D-Md., and others that would include the University of Missouri at
Columbia.

Some experts contend that communications and image aren't the issue. Among them
is Hady Amr, a former Defense Department and World Bank official now with the
Brookings Institution.

"You can't market what you don't have," Amr says. "We don't have policies that
people like. No amount of spin is going to get people to like American foreign
policy."

pdine@post-dispatch.com | 202-298-6880

Its as we always thought --- Bin Laden wanted Bush to get a second term because he was great for recruitment and so incompetent that he really had nothing to fear from a second term of BUsh II ----

So his release right before the election in 2004 must have been gauged to help Bush out...

And the funny thing is that Bush and the Republicans argued that a Democratic victory would be a win for Al Qaeda...

But as usual --- Bush used projection for his own benefit --- he priojected his and his Adminstration's own weaknesses on his opponents...and Americans were duped again...

Qaeda's Reverse-Reverse Psychology
by Robert Parry

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2007/050807Parry2.shtml

George W. Bush loves to tell his audiences that they must “listen to the words of the enemy” and “take their words seriously,” thus setting up his argument that al-Qaeda wants the United States to leave Iraq so the U.S. military must stay in Iraq.

Like much of what Bush has said about the Iraq War, this presidential homespun wisdom always has had more emotional appeal than actual logic. But a newly released videotape from al-Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri demonstrates why Bush’s argument has never made sense.

In the videotape, Zawahiri expressed al-Qaeda’s regret that Congress might force an American military withdrawal and thus “deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in an historic trap.”

Zawahiri added, "We ask Allah that they only get out after losing 200,000-300,000 killed, so that we give the blood spillers in Washington and Europe an unforgettable lesson to motivate them to review their entire doctrinal and moral system."

The Egyptian extremist also said the Democrats' war appropriation bill, which would have set a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, “reflects American failure and frustration.” (Bush vetoed the legislation on May 1, demanding that Congress give him the war funding with no strings attached.)

But, if the American people were to follow Bush’s mandate to heed the words of the enemy and do the opposite, what are they to make of Zawahiri’s latest mocking tirade?

Should the United States react to his insulting comments about the Democrats’ withdrawal timetable and keep troops in Iraq indefinitely, or would that grant Zawahiri his wish about locking America into “an historic trap” and allowing the killing of more U.S. soldiers? Which of the two contradictory positions would fit with Bush's edict about listening to the words of the enemy?

Already, Bush’s supporters have jumped on Zawahiri’s comments as another reason to bash the Democrats for their alleged “surrender” plan. Right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh said on May 7 that Zawahiri’s message was proof that “Democrats own defeat when it comes to the Iraq War.”

Osama’s Briar Patch

But one could argue that it is Bush’s open-ended war strategy that is playing into al-Qaeda’s hands.

In past articles at Consortiumnews.com, we have noted that Bush’s “listen to words of the enemy” argument was flawed because al-Qaeda’s public statements, which Bush would cite, often were at odds with its internal communications, which presumably reflected the group’s real thinking.

For instance, intercepted communiqués dating from the last half of 2005 revealed that al-Qaeda feared that a prompt U.S. military withdrawal would lead to the collapse of its operations in Iraq and that “prolonging the war is in our interest.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Al-Qaeda’s Fragile Foothold.”]

U.S. intelligence analysts also were keyed in to al-Qaeda’s use of reverse psychology, for instance, when Osama bin Laden released a videotape on the Friday before Election 2004 denouncing Bush and thus giving the President a boost in the final days of the campaign.

Privately, CIA analysts concluded that bin Laden wanted Bush to get a second term so his blunderbuss “war on terror” could continue for another four years and thus help al-Qaeda recruit more young terrorists.

Bin Laden denouncing Bush before the election was like Brer Rabbit begging not to be thrown into the briar patch when that was exactly where he wanted to go. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Giving Osama What He Really Wants.”]

Bush – and the major Washington news media – largely have ignored the revelations about al-Qaeda’s private goals and focused on its public comments baiting the United States to depart Iraq in humiliation or the group’s boasts about plans to build a new Islamic “caliphate.”

But Zawahiri’s latest comments present a new challenge because his sarcastic wish for the United States to remain in Iraq until hundreds of thousands of American troops are killed dovetails more with al-Qaeda's internal strategy than previous public statements have. In other words, instead of just baiting the United States to leave, he is also baiting the U.S. to stay.

So, given Zawahiri's contradictory messages, should Washington heed al-Qaeda’s words and stay in Iraq or should Washington heed al-Qaeda’s words and leave Iraq?

Another question, of course, could be: Why should the world’s sole superpower tie its decision-making to the ranting – public or private – of a ragtag band of homicidal maniacs, especially when U.S. intelligence has concluded that al-Qaeda is trying to play mind games on the American people and their leaders?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.' This article is republished in the Baltimore Chronicle with permission of the author.

May 7, 2007
Editorial
The Soft Bigotry of Iraq
NEW YORK TIMES

Whether out of blind loyalty or blind denial, most Congressional Republicans are prepared to back up President Bush’s veto of the Iraq spending bill. It is now essential that the revised version not back away from demanding that Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, finally deliver on the crucial national reconciliation measures he has spent the last year dodging. And it must make clear that American support for his failures — and Mr. Bush’s — is fast waning.

What Mr. Maliki needs to do to slow Iraq’s bloodletting is no mystery. Iraq’s security forces must stop siding with the Shiite militias. Iraq’s oil revenue must be apportioned fairly. Anti-Baathist laws now used to deny Sunni Arabs employment and political opportunities must be rewritten to target only those responsible for the crimes of the Saddam Hussein era.

Without these steps, Mr. Maliki and his allies cannot even minimally claim to be a real national government. With them, there is at least a chance that Iraqis can muster the strength to contain the chaos when, as is inevitable, American forces begin to leave. Mr. Bush acknowledges that these benchmarks are important. Yet he refuses to insist, or let Congress insist, that Baghdad achieve them or face real consequences. Each time Baghdad fails a test, Mr. Bush lowers his requirements and postpones his target dates — the kind of destructive denial Mr. Bush called, in another context, the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Consider the Baghdad security drive. Last week, The Washington Post reported that Mr. Maliki’s office had helped instigate the firing of senior Iraqi security officers who moved aggressively against a powerful Shiite militia. After betting so many American lives, the combat readiness of the United States Army and his own remaining credibility on this bloody push to secure the capital, it is a mystery why Mr. Bush would allow the Iraqi leader to undermine it.

Then there is the endless soap opera that is one day supposed to produce a fair share-out of Iraqi oil revenues. The Bush administration prematurely popped champagne corks in February when Mr. Maliki’s cabinet agreed on a preliminary draft. Now, in May, there is no share-out, no legislation and even the preliminary agreement is starting to unravel. The leading Sunni Arab party in Mr. Maliki’s cabinet is now threatening to withdraw its ministers, declaring that it has “lost hope” that the Iraqi leader will deal seriously with Sunni concerns.

Mr. Bush, by contrast, sees “signs of hope” in the Baghdad security situation, urges Americans to give his failed policies more time and seems offended that Congress wants to impose accountability on Baghdad and the White House.

The final version of the spending bill should include explicit benchmarks and timetables for the Iraqis, even if Mr. Bush won’t let Congress back them up with a clear timetable for America’s withdrawal. If Mr. Maliki and Mr. Bush still don’t get it, Congress will have to enact new means of enforcement, and back that up with a veto-proof majority.

Bush Is Losing the 'War on Terror'

By Robert Parry
February 20, 2007

http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2007/021907.html

Despite the sacrifices in lives, treasure and liberties, the painful reality is that the United States is losing the “war on terror” – in large part because too many people in the Middle East and across the globe view George W. Bush as a bully and a hypocrite.

Bush has become the ugly face of America, mouthing pretty words about freedom and democracy while threatening other nations and bludgeoning those who get in his way. Perhaps even worse, Bush has shown himself to be an incompetent commander, especially for a conflict as complicated and nuanced as this one.

Indeed, it is hard to envision how the United States can win the crucial battles for the hearts and minds of key populations if Bush remains President. Arguably, Bush has become a “clear and present danger” to the interests of the American people – yet he still has almost two years left in his term.

This predicament – the desperate need for new U.S. leadership and the difficult fact of being stuck with Bush – was underscored by the Feb. 19 lead article in the New York Times describing the revival of al-Qaeda as a worldwide terror network operating out of new bases in remote sections of Pakistan.

“American officials said there was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan,” the Times reported.

“As recently as 2005, American intelligence assessments described senior leaders of al-Qaeda as cut off from their foot soldiers and able only to provide inspiration for future attacks. But more recent intelligence describes the organization’s hierarchy as intact and strengthening,” the Times wrote.

The Times quoted one American government official as saying “the chain of command has been reestablished” and that al-Qaeda’s “leadership command and control is robust.” [NYT, Feb. 19, 2007]

In the face of this al-Qaeda comeback, the Bush administration is reportedly debating whether to launch military strikes inside Pakistan. But that would risk destabilizing the dictatorship of Gen. Pervez Musharraf and conceivably provoking the nightmare scenario of Islamic fundamentalists gaining control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

In other words, more than five years into the “war on terror,” Bush has overseen a strategy that has simultaneously alienated world public opinion – with scandals over Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and secret CIA prisons – while fueling Islamic extremism and giving new life to the 9/11 masterminds.

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group described the situation in Iraq as “grave and deteriorating.” But the same description would fit for the broader strategic position of the United States in the Middle East.

The U.S. military is facing a worsening crisis in Iraq; the Taliban is on the rise again in Afghanistan; Hezbollah is gaining strength in Lebanon; Iran is defying international pressure over its nuclear program; and now al-Qaeda – having resettled in Pakistan – is rebuilding its capability to strike targets beyond the Middle East.

Bush’s Mistakes

Much of today’s crisis can be traced to Bush’s arrogance and impatience. In 2001, even before the 9/11 attacks, Bush insisted on a “unilateralist” approach toward the world, asserting U.S. global hegemony under a strategy laid out by the neoconservative Project for the New American Century.

At the center of this grandiose scheme was the belief that the oil-rich Middle East could be remade through violent “regime change” in hostile countries like Iraq. Bush later broadened his target list to the “axis of evil,” tossing in Iran and North Korea and making clear that other lesser enemies included the likes of Syria, Cuba and Venezuela.

While this neoconservative plan wrapped itself in the noble language of “democracy,” the concept was always less about respecting the will of indigenous populations than in restructuring their economies along “free market” lines and ensuring compliant leaders.

In all of this, there was little room for compromise or negotiation with the “bad guys.” It was as if the macho rhetoric of AM talk radio and Fox News had swallowed U.S. foreign policy. Real men don’t negotiate with people who get in the way; you jail or kill them.

Bush also grew enamored with his “gut” instincts about war, especially after U.S.-backed forces ousted Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders more quickly than many expected. Even after he let top al-Qaeda leaders slip away from Tora Bora in late 2001, Bush ignored warnings that he needed to finish the job there before turning America’s attention elsewhere.

Instead, Bush redirected U.S. military assets to Iraq, a country that wasn’t involved in 9/11 and actually had served as an important bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism, both the strains from Shiite-ruled Iran and Sunni-dominated al-Qaeda.

But Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was something of a Bush family obsession since he defied President George H.W. Bush in the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91. In March 2003, Bush launched an invasion of Iraq and toppled Hussein’s government in three weeks.

After basking again in public adulation as the victorious “war president,” Bush stubbornly refused to acknowledge the growing seriousness of an Iraqi insurgency that rose up to challenge U.S. forces.

The U.S. occupation of Iraq – combined with abuse scandals at U.S.-run prisons – also fed popular anger across the Middle East. Thousands of young jihadists rallied to the cause of ousting the Americans from Muslim lands.

As the body counts grew – thousands of U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis – Bush dug in his heels deeper. When Iraq slid into chaos and then civil war, Bush again refused to acknowledge the facts in a timely fashion.

Bush also encouraged Israel to wage an ill-conceived war in southern Lebanon in summer 2006, further alienating the Muslim world. That was followed by the grisly execution of Hussein in December and new military tensions with Iran in early 2007.

In short, Bush appears determined to stampede the United States into a Middle Eastern box canyon – after offending most Muslim allies and offering little more than military solutions to essentially political and diplomatic problems.

Al-Qaeda’s Favorite President

Over the past six years, the wily and ruthless leaders of al-Qaeda also came to understand that Bush was their perfect foil. The more he was viewed as the “big crusader,” the more they could present themselves as the “defenders of Islam.” The al-Qaeda murderers moved from the fringes of Muslim society closer to the mainstream.

After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, al-Qaeda’s leaders transformed the conflict into both a rallying cry and a training ground. Bin Laden and Zawahiri believed the longer the Iraq War lasted the better it was for al-Qaeda.

So, in fall 2004, with Bush fighting for his political life against Democrat John Kerry, bin Laden took the risk of breaking nearly a year of silence to release a videotape denouncing Bush on the Friday before the U.S. election.

Bush’s supporters immediately spun bin Laden’s tirade as an “endorsement” of Kerry and pollsters recorded a jump of several percentage points for Bush, from nearly a dead heat to a five- or six-point lead. Four days later, Bush hung on to win a second term by an official margin of less than three percentage points. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Bush-Bin Laden Symbiosis.”]

The intervention by bin Laden – essentially urging Americans to reject Bush – had the predictable effect of driving voters to the President. After the videotape appeared, senior CIA analysts concluded that ensuring a second term for Bush was precisely what bin Laden intended.

“Bin Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President,” said deputy CIA director John McLaughlin in opening a meeting to review secret “strategic analysis” after the videotape had dominated the day’s news, according to Ron Suskind’s The One Percent Doctrine, which draws heavily from CIA insiders.

Suskind wrote that CIA analysts had spent years “parsing each expressed word of the al-Qaeda leader and his deputy, Zawahiri. What they’d learned over nearly a decade is that bin Laden speaks only for strategic reasons. … Today’s conclusion: bin Laden’s message was clearly designed to assist the President’s reelection.”

Jami Miscik, CIA deputy associate director for intelligence, expressed the consensus view that bin Laden recognized how Bush’s heavy-handed policies were serving al-Qaeda’s strategic goals for recruiting a new generation of jihadists.

“Certainly,” Miscik said, “he would want Bush to keep doing what he’s doing for a few more years.”

As their internal assessment sank in, the CIA analysts were troubled by the implications of their own conclusions. “An ocean of hard truths before them – such as what did it say about U.S. policies that bin Laden would want Bush reelected – remained untouched,” Suskind wrote.

Even Bush recognized that his struggling campaign had been helped by bin Laden. “I thought it was going to help,” Bush said in a post-election interview about the videotape. “I thought it would help remind people that if bin Laden doesn’t want Bush to be the President, something must be right with Bush.”

Bin Laden, a well-educated Saudi and a keen observer of U.S. politics, appears to have recognized the same point in cleverly tipping the election to Bush.

Prolonging the War

Al-Qaeda’s leaders understood that a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq might mean a renewed assault on them as well as the loss of their cause celebre for recruiting new jihadists. With Bush ensconced for a second term, that concern lessened but didn’t entirely disappear.

According to a captured July 9, 2005, letter, attributed to Zawahiri, al-Qaeda leaders still fretted over the possibility that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq could touch off the disintegration of their operations, as jihadists who had flocked to Iraq to battle the Americans might simply give up the fight and go home.

“The mujahaddin must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and then lay down their weapons, and silence the fighting zeal,” said the “Zawahiri letter,” according to a text released by the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence.

In another captured letter, dated Dec. 11, 2005, a senior al-Qaeda operative known as “Atiyah” wrote that “prolonging the war [in Iraq] is in our interest.” [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Al-Qaeda’s Fragile Foothold.”]

Now, it appears al-Qaeda’s “Bush-second-term” strategy is paying big dividends. Bush is stretching U.S. forces even thinner by escalating the American troop commitment in Iraq while also deploying military assets to threaten Shiite Iran, another enemy of the Sunni fundamentalists in al-Qaeda.

Meanwhile, al-Qaeda’s Taliban allies are on the offensive against embattled NATO contingents in Afghanistan, and new al-Qaeda units are undergoing training in Pakistan. In Iraq, al-Qaeda still makes up only a small percentage of the armed insurgency – probably less than five percent – but it benefits from the arrival of new recruits and the opportunity to test out military tactics against the Americans.

Overall, time and momentum appear to be on al-Qaeda’s side. As long as Bush remains America’s leader and al-Qaeda’s poster boy, there seems little chance for a more effective U.S. counterinsurgency strategy.

Unlike the Iraqi insurgents who are proving to be highly adaptive in the field, Bush can’t seem to get beyond his tough-guy rhetoric and his obsession with military force. He remains bin Laden’s favorite President.

According to one recent Newsweek poll, 58 percent of Americans wish the Bush administration were over. But there is a long way between wishing for a desperately needed change and the slow process of the electoral calendar.

The trickier questions are: Can the United States afford 23 more months of Bush in the White House? Does his incompetence in the face of today’s fast-moving crises demand extraordinary action to remove him from office through impeachment?

If impeachment is impossible, given the sizable Republican minorities in both the House and Senate, is there at least some hope for legislative remedies that can begin to correct Bush’s many errors? Could patriotic Republicans confront the President and Vice President about resignations?

Or must the American people wait two more years as today’s “clear and present danger” grows only more acute?

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

We are not necessarily safer - - just lucky.

We have not been hit because nobody has tried to hit us.

We have the stupidest people running the intel as well as the dumbest people running the airports.

No liquids creams or lotions.

Take off your shoes.

Be happy that Richard Reid didn't have semtex in his BVDs.

I actually believe we are safer.

The question is whether we are as safe as we could be with a more prudent Administration or if we had had a Republican Congress that was interested in fulfilling its constitutionally mandated role of oversight of the Executive instead of rubber-stamping what the White House recommended.

There are many actions which if moderated by the Republican Congress may have strengthened our efforts in the global war on terror.

These include implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission completely and hardening our targets, fighting a smarter war in Iraq, and requiring that the threat in Afghanistan be eliminated before heralding victory.

First, it’s worth noting that today’s success was due to intelligence gathering and law-enforcement efforts — the very techniques the Bush White House has consistently ridiculed as ineffective in counterterrorism. For that matter, as Steve M. noted, "[A]pparently no warrantless wiretapping led to these arrests, no torture of suspects in overseas prisons, nothing liberals have objected to in the Patriot Act. Remember that when you’re told that these arrests prove that we can’t trust liberals and Democrats."

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10735.html

First, it’s worth noting that today’s success was due to intelligence gathering and law-enforcement efforts — the very techniques the Bush White House has consistently ridiculed as ineffective in counterterrorism. For that matter, as Steve M. noted, "[A]pparently no warrantless wiretapping led to these arrests, no torture of suspects in overseas prisons, nothing liberals have objected to in the Patriot Act. Remember that when you’re told that these arrests prove that we can’t trust liberals and Democrats."

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10735.html

you got it

The World Situation has gotten progressively worse since 9/11. Whether viewed as the Mean,
the Median or the Mode, the Individual Person's Self-in-Situation adaptation has trended downward. Since the 2006 elections this trend has leveled off and may have started in the other direction. There is a possible counter trend with a more up-beat tune which is the final throws of
a Scientific Paradigm Shift pushing a more developmental, wellness model of Being-in-the-world.
We can become safer, simply by letting be.

Put me down for agreeing with Silver.

Good point DWB...

Remember this when wanting to argue with those who are Republican biased.

You know, I'm thinking about this one... of all the targets to go after, these guys decide to try to attack an Army base???? Seems like that would be at the absolute bottom of most of the bad guys' lists.

"Hey -- let's go attack a place with a whole lot of guns and a whole lot of people trained to use them". Seems really stupid to me.

And maybe they just released a "training film" to the media
They make those you know ?

Perhaps you'd like to back up the claim that intelligence gathering are ridiculed by Bush?

Then explain these:
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/10559/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/c...ticle605120.ece
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6070700361.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2710776&page=1
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/09/news/web.0209bush.php
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/toronto-...plot/index.html
http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/articles...e-reaction.html
http://www.politicalgateway.com/main/colum...ad.html?col=636
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/...articleID=12439
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1&id=253672007
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2920
http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/ar...amp;printthis=1
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060811-123445-6543r.htm
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0WD..._5/ai_114980401
http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1462
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0600455_pf.html
http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/archive/20...-08-18-voa2.cfm
http://news.netscape.com/story/2007/01/22/...-student-visas/
http://www.militaryconnections.com/news_st...?textnewsid=414
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/...003CDF9486.html
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060718/51504009.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,1...1120822,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,449533,00.html

To me it looks like the world is cooperating with Bush far too much for your liking.

Thats one hell of a propaganda outlet list you have assembled marine

Note taken ....... and thanks for saving me the work.

Is the question in this thread posed with relevance that is only restricted to "terrorism"?

The mayor in my city told me what he thought when, just after 9/11, his part-time emergency management director rushed breathlessly into his office and said "Mr. Mayor, we need to put a 24-hour police detail on the reservoir. Al-Qaeda is going to poison our water system."

His Honor laughed and said "Get out of here. I have real problems to deal with."

So what about using risk management tools and effective risk management communications?

If the average person has a higher chance of dying from heart disease or getting run over by a car, maybe we need a color scale for that.

If our water systems and our air are being poisoned by our own industries and creating significant health hazards, maybe we need a Department of Homeland Environmental Security.

Soon, we're gonna a need a czar of czars...

Marine:

What does your list purport to demonstrate?

That the international community's intelligence services are cooperating with the United States?

Well, who has disputed that? No one on this site.

The point made was the fact that much or most of the work that resulted in the 6 suspects being caught in New Jersey was done by law enforcement. The same law enforcement that was derided by Bush and the Republican party when Senator Kerry articulated that it was the best means to catch and contain terrorism.

It is hypocrisy that we are discussing here Marine.

The fact that the international community continues to share intelligence with us only demonstrates that despite the Bush Administration deriding and berating other nations --- those nations do not hold grudges --- they continue to cooperate and do their best --- whether its Iran helping us to combat the Taliban --- or Germany sharing intelligence estimates.

Marine:

Those links are helpful in making DWB04's point that torture and illegal wiretapping are less effective at protecting an safeguarding the US from the threat of terrorism at home and abroad -- than good 'ol law enforcement techniques and vigilant citizens...

But as Bill Maher noted on his show this last week --- what is going to stop terrorism is stopping young Muslims from wanting to kill Americans -- and tell me how the Bush Administration and its strategy is focused toward that goal...and that reality?

Hypocrisy? I believe it's probaly more along the lines a delusional thinking.

I still ain't seen a thing that says Bush belittles law enforcement and intelligence sources. I see that when someone in a foreign country don't want to cooperate or wants to provide a safe harbor for terrorist the military is the answer.

Let's say Ossama decides the best place for him to hide out is North Korea, he starts planning and sending forth his killers to carry out those plans. Now, you tell me how many policemen it will take and how well armed they'd need to be to go in to North Korea to arrest Ossama?

The only folks I've seen devaluing the tasks of intelligence has been liberals. They'd rather see another 9/11 happen than some murderer having to sit naked on a cold floor.

Marine:

As a marine, do you have any sensitivity to the fact that generals and soldiers alike oppose torture because it places them at greater risk of similar treatment in the field?

July 28, 2005
Military's Opposition to Harsh Interrogation Is Outlined
By NEIL A. LEWIS
NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON, July 27 - Senior military lawyers lodged vigorous and detailed dissents in early 2003 as an administration legal task force concluded that President Bush had authority as commander in chief to order harsh interrogations of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, newly disclosed documents show.

Despite the military lawyers' warnings, the task force concluded that military interrogators and their commanders would be immune from prosecution for torture under federal and international law because of the special character of the fight against terrorism.

In memorandums written by several senior uniformed lawyers in each of the military services as the legal review was under way, they had urged a sharply different view and also warned that the position eventually adopted by the task force could endanger American service members.

The memorandums were declassified and released last week in response to a request from Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. Mr. Graham made the request after hearings in which officers representing the military's judge advocates general acknowledged having expressed concerns over interrogation policies.

The documents include one written by the deputy judge advocate general of the Air Force, Maj. Gen. Jack L. Rives, advising the task force that several of the "more extreme interrogation techniques, on their face, amount to violations of domestic criminal law" as well as military law.

General Rives added that many other countries were likely to disagree with the reasoning used by Justice Department lawyers about immunity from prosecution. Instead, he said, the use of many of the interrogation techniques "puts the interrogators and the chain of command at risk of criminal accusations abroad."

Any such crimes, he said, could be prosecuted in other nations' courts, international courts or the International Criminal Court, a body the United States does not formally participate in or recognize.

Other senior military lawyers warned in tones of sharp concern that aggressive interrogation techniques would endanger American soldiers taken prisoner and also diminish the country's standing as a leader in "the moral high road" approach to the laws of war.

The memorandums provide the most complete record to date of how uniformed military lawyers were frequently the chief dissenters as government officials formulated interrogation policies.

"These military lawyers were clearly disturbed by the proposed techniques that were deviations from past practices that were being advocated by the Justice Department," said Senator Graham, himself a former military lawyer.

He said that the genesis of the dispute was a memorandum issued in August 2002 by the Justice Department and signed by Jay S. Bybee, the head of the office of legal counsel.

The Bybee memorandum defined torture extremely narrowly and said Mr. Bush could ignore domestic and international prohibitions against it in the name of national security. That position was rescinded by the Justice Department last Dec. 30.

Rear Adm. Michael F. Lohr, the Navy's chief lawyer, wrote on Feb. 6, 2003, that while detainees at Guantánamo Bay might not qualify for international protections, "Will the American people find we have missed the forest for the trees by condoning practices that, while technically legal, are inconsistent with our most fundamental values?"

Brig. Gen. Kevin M. Sandkuhler, a senior Marine lawyer, said in a Feb. 27, 2003, memorandum that all the military lawyers believed the harsh interrogation regime could have adverse consequences for American service members. General Sandkuhler said that the Justice Department "does not represent the services; thus, understandably, concern for service members is not reflected in their opinion."

Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Romig, the Army's top-ranking uniformed lawyer, said in a March 3, 2003, memorandum that the approach recommended by the Justice Department "will open us up to criticism that the U.S. is a law unto itself."

The confidential government deliberations over permissible interrogation techniques that ranged from August 2002 to April 2003 were prompted by a request from officers at Guantánamo. They said traditional practices were proving ineffective against one detainee, Mohamed al-Kahtani, believed to have been the planned 20th hijacker on Sept. 11, 2001. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved a series of techniques in December 2002, only to rescind them temporarily after military lawyers complained.

Mr. Rumsfeld ordered a study by the legal task force, led by Mary Walker, the Air Force general counsel. When the Walker task force issued its report on March 6, 2003, it largely adopted the Justice Department's view.

Senator Graham said, however, that Mr. Rumsfeld subsequently learned of the military lawyers' objections and that became a factor in his decision on April 16, 2003, to limit the permitted interrogation techniques.

Ex-Warden Tells of Use of Dogs

FORT MEADE, Md., July 27 (AP) - The former warden of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq testified Wednesday that he attended a meeting in which the commander of the Guantánamo prison recommended using military dogs for interrogation.

The former warden, Maj. David Dinenna, testified at the end of a preliminary hearing for two Army dog handlers accused of abusing Iraqi detainees. Major Dinenna said that at a meeting in September 2003, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, then the Guantánamo commander, talked about the effectiveness of using the dogs.

And why is it so hard for you to understand that torture does not provide accurate/credible intelligence?
The Torture Myth

By Anne Applebaum

Wednesday, January 12, 2005; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A...anguage=printer

Just for a moment, let's pretend that there is no moral, legal or constitutional problem with torture. Let's also imagine a clear-cut case: a terrorist who knows where bombs are about to explode in Iraq. To stop him, it seems that a wide range of Americans would be prepared to endorse "cruel and unusual" methods. In advance of confirmation hearings for Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzales last week, the Wall Street Journal argued that such scenarios must be debated, since "what's at stake in this controversy is nothing less than the ability of U.S. forces to interrogate enemies who want to murder innocent civilians." Alan Dershowitz, the liberal legal scholar, has argued in the past that interrogators in such a case should get a "torture warrant" from a judge. Both of these arguments rest on an assumption: that torture -- defined as physical pressure during interrogation -- can be used to extract useful information.

But does torture work? The question has been asked many times since Sept. 11, 2001. I'm repeating it, however, because the Gonzales hearings inspired more articles about our lax methods ("Too Nice for Our Own Good" was one headline), because similar comments may follow this week's trial of Spec. Charles Graner, the alleged Abu Ghraib ringleader, and because I still cannot find a positive answer. I've heard it said that the Syrians and the Egyptians "really know how to get these things done." I've heard the Israelis mentioned, without proof. I've heard Algeria mentioned, too, but Darius Rejali, an academic who recently trolled through French archives, found no clear examples of how torture helped the French in Algeria -- and they lost that war anyway. "Liberals," argued an article in the liberal online magazine Slate a few months ago, "have a tendency to accept, all too eagerly, the argument that torture is ineffective." But it's also true that "realists," whether liberal or conservative, have a tendency to accept, all too eagerly, fictitious accounts of effective torture carried out by someone else.

By contrast, it is easy to find experienced U.S. officers who argue precisely the opposite. Meet, for example, retired Air Force Col. John Rothrock, who, as a young captain, headed a combat interrogation team in Vietnam. More than once he was faced with a ticking time-bomb scenario: a captured Vietcong guerrilla who knew of plans to kill Americans. What was done in such cases was "not nice," he says. "But we did not physically abuse them." Rothrock used psychology, the shock of capture and of the unexpected. Once, he let a prisoner see a wounded comrade die. Yet -- as he remembers saying to the "desperate and honorable officers" who wanted him to move faster -- "if I take a Bunsen burner to the guy's genitals, he's going to tell you just about anything," which would be pointless. Rothrock, who is no squishy liberal, says that he doesn't know "any professional intelligence officers of my generation who would think this is a good idea."

Or listen to Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq. Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones. Asked whether that would be true of religiously motivated fanatics, he says that the "batting average" might be lower: "perhaps six out of ten." And if you beat up the remaining four? "They'll just tell you anything to get you to stop."

Worse, you'll have the other side effects of torture. It "endangers our soldiers on the battlefield by encouraging reciprocity." It does "damage to our country's image" and undermines our credibility in Iraq. That, in the long run, outweighs any theoretical benefit. Herrington's confidential Pentagon report, which he won't discuss but which was leaked to The Post a month ago, goes farther. In that document, he warned that members of an elite military and CIA task force were abusing detainees in Iraq, that their activities could be "making gratuitous enemies" and that prisoner abuse "is counterproductive to the Coalition's efforts to win the cooperation of the Iraqi citizenry." Far from rescuing Americans, in other words, the use of "special methods" might help explain why the war is going so badly.

An up-to-date illustration of the colonel's point appeared in recently released FBI documents from the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. These show, among other things, that some military intelligence officers wanted to use harsher interrogation methods than the FBI did. As a result, complained one inspector, "every time the FBI established a rapport with a detainee, the military would step in and the detainee would stop being cooperative." So much for the utility of torture.

Given the overwhelmingly negative evidence, the really interesting question is not whether torture works but why so many people in our society want to believe that it works. At the moment, there is a myth in circulation, a fable that goes something like this: Radical terrorists will take advantage of our fussy legality, so we may have to suspend it to beat them. Radical terrorists mock our namby-pamby prisons, so we must make them tougher. Radical terrorists are nasty, so to defeat them we have to be nastier.

Perhaps it's reassuring to tell ourselves tales about the new forms of "toughness" we need, or to talk about the special rules we will create to defeat this special enemy. Unfortunately, that toughness is self-deceptive and self-destructive. Ultimately it will be self-defeating as well.

And now back to the point of this all --- Bush attacking law enforcement techniques to fight terrorism -- which has been printed before --- but in case you did not see it...

Bush campaign to base ad on Kerry terror quote
Democrats: GOP again taking senator's words out of context



WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's campaign announced Sunday its plans to use as the basis of a new commercial a quote from an 8,000-word New York Times Magazine article about Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

The parsing prompted the Kerry camp to retort that the soon-to-be-released Bush ad was another example of the president's campaign taking words out of context to create a misleading impression.

In the magazine article, a largely analytical cover story by Matt Bai, Kerry is asked "what it would take for Americans to feel safe again." (Special Report: America Votes 2004)

''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,'' the article states as the Massachusetts senator's reply.

''As a former law enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''

Kerry was a prosecutor before he got into politics, and made fighting organized crime a priority.

Bush campaign Chairman Marc Racicot, in an appearance on CNN's "Late Edition," interpreted Kerry's remarks as saying "that the war on terrorism is like a nuisance. He equated it to prostitution and gambling, a nuisance activity. You know, quite frankly, I just don't think he has the right view of the world. It's a pre-9/11 view of the world."

Republican Party Chairman Ed Gillespie, on CBS' "Face the Nation," used similar language.

"Terrorism is not a law enforcement matter, as John Kerry repeatedly says. Terrorist activities are not like gambling. Terrorist activities are not like prostitution. And this demonstrates a disconcerting pre-September 11 mindset that will not make our country safer. And that is what we see relative to winning the war on terror and relative to Iraq."

The Bush-Cheney campaign also announced it was releasing an ad highlighting Kerry's comment.

Reuters reported that the new Bush commercial's script asks "How can Kerry protect us when he doesn't understand the threat?"

Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer called the Republican charges "absolutely ridiculous."

"This is yet another example of the Bush campaign taking John Kerry's words out of context, and then blowing it up into something that is nothing," he said.

"The whole article is about how John Kerry recognizes that the war on terror requires a multipronged approach. It's not just the military aspect, but you need diplomacy to be able to enlist your allies. The Bush people have never understood that. John Kerry has always said that terrorism is the No. 1 threat to the U.S."

Kerry consistently has rejected assertions that he underestimates the threat of terrorism or views the battle against it as solely a law enforcement matter. He argues that law enforcement and intelligence are critical elements of the battle against terrorism, and that Bush has said the same thing.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who was chairman of the Democratic National Convention, where Kerry got his party's nomination in July, said on "Late Edition," "Senator Kerry has said that the No. 1 threat to America is international terrorism, al Qaeda."








Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/10/bush.kerry.terror

Gonzales Nomination Draws Military Criticism
Retired Officers Cite His Role in Shaping Policies on Torture
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 4, 2005; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A...anguage=printer

A dozen high-ranking retired military officers took the unusual step yesterday of signing a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing "deep concern" over the nomination of White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales as attorney general, marking a rare military foray into the debate over a civilian post.

The group includes retired Army Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The officers are one of several groups to separately urge the Senate to sharply question Gonzales during a confirmation hearing Thursday about his role in shaping legal policies on torture and interrogation methods.

Although the GOP-controlled Senate is expected to confirm Gonzales to succeed Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, some Democrats have vowed to question him aggressively amid continuing revelations of abuses of military detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The letter signed by the retired officers, compiled by the group Human Rights First and sent to the committee's leadership last night, criticizes Gonzales for his role in reviewing and approving a series of memorandums arguing, among other things, that the United States could lawfully ignore portions of the Geneva Conventions and that some forms of torture "may be justified" in the war on terror.

"Today, it is clear that these operations have fostered greater animosity toward the United States, undermined our intelligence gathering efforts and added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world," the officers wrote, referring to the Bush administration's detention and interrogation policies.

Although it stops short of directly opposing Gonzales's nomination, the three-page letter contains sharp criticism of his decisions related to military legal issues and argues that he is "on the wrong side of history."

"Repeatedly in our past, the United States has confronted foes that, at the time they emerged, posed threats of a scope or nature unlike any we had previously faced," the letter reads. "But we have been far more steadfast in the past in keeping faith with our national commitment to the rule of law."

In addition to Shalikashvili, other prominent signatories to the letter include retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, former chief of the Central Command; former Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill A. McPeak; and Lt. Gen. Claudia J. Kennedy, the Army's first female three-star general. Several, including Shalikashvili, supported the failed presidential candidacy of Democrat John F. Kerry.

Richard H. Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who specializes in military-civilian affairs, said the letter is extremely rare, if not unprecedented.

"I don't know of any precedent for something like this," Kohn said. "A retired group of military officers bands together to virtually oppose a Cabinet nominee? And a non-military one? It is highly unusual, to say the least."

A number of other groups are gearing up this week to criticize or oppose Gonzales's nomination. The American Civil Liberties Union -- which has forced the release of hundreds of pages of records documenting apparent abuses in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay -- said in a news release yesterday that the Senate should sharply question Gonzales about detainee issues as well as his close ties to President Bush.

Another organization of liberal religious leaders plans to release a letter today calling on Gonzales to "denounce the use of torture under any circumstances."

Let's say that Bin Laden holes us somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistani border, but the President of the U.S. diverts military resources from that theatre to a disastrous military adventure somewhere else. How do we respond to that?

Oh, that has already happened.

Which is really an interesting tact --- because Bush has repeatedly said that effective law enforcement is necessary to combat terrorism ---

Ah the hypocrisy of W. continues...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20040419-5.html

http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display....amfuak0.8502466

Arne:

Whether its happened or not -- we still needed a viable response --- I'd be interested in hearing what Marine suggests...

It has to be better than what Bush has suggested...to date...and make no bones about it --- this surge is Bush's idea --- not his generals --- who both in the person of Casey and Abizaid rejected the idea --- so Bush searched for another soldier who was with the idea --- and then he "poof" became the leader in Iraq...

Or maybe not --- Marine would probably call for the removal of our troops from the region and then nuke Iran and Iraq and start over...

Who's been tortured?

Nope, Iran alone would do.

Bush's idea, about time somebody gave him credit for something.
http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...EWS07/705090349

How is that a less infuriating question than what American has been a victim of Islamic terrorism?

Can't have too few people in the world absolutely hating us, can we now?

Well of course the clear and sensible answer is pretty much just what Kerry said, that terrorism is primarily a law enforcement problem. Now it is not solely a law enforcement problem, just as a doctor is not just concerned with your heart, lungs and kidney, but is concerned about your pancreas as well. Sometimes a military response is called for, as it was in Afghanistan. Bush was right on that. I may not like to say that, but it is true. But most terrorists are going to get caught by law enforcement. And along with military action, we need to do other things, like aid other countries in developing sound institutions and economies, cajole them into reforms leading to societies where you don't have huge numbers of aggrieved people tempted by terrorism. In other words, all that bleeding-heart, soft power, liberal stuff. And, dare I say it? We need to respect other people, and be concerned when our actions or those of our allies lead to too many deaths of innocents, even if they live in "enemy countries". That is critical. If we respect others then they are more likely to respect us, and be favorable to our efforts in the world. IMHO that is more important than what we can do in a military way against terrorism, although I think the military part of the equation still critically important in an absolute sense, something that we would be foolish to neglect.

The citizens of the US inhabit a World that has become progressively more dangerous since 9/11.
While we are gaining response potential for reversing this effect, the danger also continues to
expand the longer it takes to make the paradygm shift required to push back. Other than fear itself, all we have to fear is premature compromise.

Yes, we're safer now than on 9-11, Bush will be calling the shots for less than 2 years, then it was over 6 years and the plans for a war with Iran went inactive.

Actually we need to fear the thinking that says all of the problems in the world are nails, so all we need are hammers to deal with them, even more.

Here's another metaphor. Let us say you are worried about developing heart disease. So a doctor tells you that he will plan surgery to deal with that problem if it develops. Is this doctor taking a sound approach?

This is the reality in Iraq --- and the reason the Bush strategy has so far failed...

It has not addressed the realities on the ground --- the realities of the culture --- and it has ignored what is dividing Iraqis --- and sought to try and pry the two warring groups together...when it needs to engage them...

A cultural solution to the problem is necessary much in the same way a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem is necessary --- with the US bringing partices together to address the issues...

May 7, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
In Iraq, the Play Was the Thing
By HUSSAIN ABDUL-HUSSAIN
Washington
NEW YORK TIMES

IN 1982, our second-grade teacher at Baghdad’s Mansour school made the following announcement: “The year-end play is about our war with the Persian enemy. The top 20 students in class will play Iraqis; the bottom 20 will play Persians.”

This was at the height of the Iran-Iraq war, and during our first rehearsal the students assigned to play Persians — that is, Iranians — broke out in tears. Although many of the children were, like me, from Shiite families, they insisted that they were Iraqis first, that they loved their Sunni-led country and did not want to play the role of the enemy.

After some negotiations, the girls were spared and only the boys from the lower half were selected to play the roles of the “soldiers of Khomeini the hypocrite.” Their script was scrapped, and instead they were told simply to run across stage as the rest of us, playing the role of the Iraqi Army, mowed them down in battle.

But the play did not end when the curtain fell. Those of us from the Iraqi cast took to bragging and, in the tradition of schoolchildren everywhere, bullying the “Persians.” With tears in their eyes, they repeatedly had to beg the teacher to make us stop.

Now, a quarter of a century later, I called one of my classmates, Ayad, a Shiite who still lives in Iraq. I reminded him of the play, and of how he and I, the top two students in the class, got to play the roles of the Iraqi generals who would win the war against the Iranians. “It was the good old days,” he told me.

Ayad owns a hotel in the southern city of Karbala, home to two of Shiism’s most important shrines. His wife and two daughters wear veils. He believes that the violence in Iraq is a Sunni and American conspiracy against Shiites, and he argues that Iran is the best ally of Iraqi Shiites.

Ayad has two elder brothers. One was conscripted during the Iran-Iraq war and received medals for his courageous performance in battle. The other ran away when he was drafted and ended up living as a refugee in Iran. However, he was treated poorly there, living in poverty and under permanent suspicion, so after some years he fled to Beirut. After the Americans ousted Saddam Hussein, he returned to Iraq, and now works at Ayad’s hotel.

“We think America did a great thing by toppling Saddam,” Ayad told me, speaking for himself and his family. “But now they should hand us the country and leave.”

I asked him whether he fears that an American withdrawal might allow the Sunni insurgents to strike harder in Shiite areas. “We outnumber them,” he said. “And with the support of our Iranian brothers, we can take the Sunnis.”

“And then what?” I replied.

“Then the Shiites will rule Iraq.”

Ayad believes that there is no problem in establishing an Islamic government in Baghdad styled after that of the Iranian Republic. The Sunnis, he said, have “oppressed us since the days of the Prophet, and now it is our chance to hit back and rule.”

According to Ayad, a Shiite takeover in Iraq would set a good model for the Shiites of Lebanon, where they number about a third of the population, and Bahrain, where they are a majority.

“Perhaps the Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia will act too, rid themselves of the Sunni oppression against them, and rule or at least separate themselves from Riyadh and create their own state,” my friend argued.

It is exactly this possibility that has made the Sunni Arab regimes fear a Shiite regional revolt and moved some to support the Sunni insurgency in Iraq or at least to voice their resentment of the Iraqi Shiite government, which is seen as being biased against Iraqi Sunnis. “But we are Iraqis,” I told Ayad. “We are Arabs. We have our cultural differences with the Persians. We don’t even speak the same language.”

Ayad insisted otherwise: “When we fought the Persians during the 1980s, we were wrong. We’re Shiites before being Iraqis. Sunnis invented national identity to rule us.”

At this point, I understood that it was pointless to argue further. When the Baathist regime collapsed, I initially felt that there was a good chance for national unity, that Sunnis and Shiites would band together in the absence of the dictator who had played them against each other. Talking to Ayad, I realized how wrong I had been.

To change the subject, I asked Ayad about his business. He told me he had just erected flags on top of the entrance to his hotel. He chose the flags of Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Bahrain. When I asked why he chose the flags of these four nations, he said: “These are the countries where Shiites come from to do their pilgrimage in Karbala,” he said. “It is good for business.”

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a media analyst, is a former reporter for The Daily Star of Lebanon.

They just do not get it --- the only way to stop the violence is to address the concerns of the warring factions...which can be addressed with immunity --- and with political solutions ---

Its like Cheney is trying to put out a fire by installing another smoke alarm...

May 9, 2007
Cheney Makes Surprise Visit to Baghdad
By GRAHAM BOWLEY and JON ELSEN
NEW YORK TIMES

Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced visit to Baghdad today, meeting with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders to pressure them to show more progress in quelling violence in Iraq, and to do so quickly.

According to a senior administration official traveling with Mr. Cheney, the message the vice president took to Iraq was: “We’ve all got challenges together. We’ve got to pull together. We’ve got to get this work done. It’s game time.”

After his meetings today, Mr. Cheney told reporters he was pleased with what he had heard. “I do believe there’s a greater sense of urgency than I’ve seen previously,” he said in a news conference.

Sectarian violence has continued unabated since the new Baghdad security plan began earlier this year. On Tuesday, the Pentagon said that it had notified 35,000 more American soldiers that they were likely to be heading to Iraq by December.

The violence continued today in the northern, predominantly Kurdish city of Erbil, where a suicide bomber blew up a truck in front of an Interior Ministry building, killing at least 14 people and wounding 70 others, Iraqi officials said.

And in a clear reminder to Mr. Cheney today of the violence in Iraq, an explosion rattled windows in the building where he and reporters were working. Reporters were hustled down two flights of stairs to a basement shelter, where they remained for about five minutes before returning to work.

But Lea Anne McBride, Mr. Cheney’s spokeswoman, said the vice president’s “business was not disrupted. — he was not moved.”

The Bush administration is pushing Iraqi leaders to develop greater political cohesion among the country’s factions to help the security plan succeed. And the administration wants the Iraqis to move ahead with legislation meant to reconcile Sunni and Shiite Arabs.

On Tuesday the threat of a walkout by Iraq’s leading Sunni bloc in Parliament and the cabinet seemed to diminish after Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, met with Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni.

On his trip, Mr. Cheney plans to host a dinner at the American embassy with top Iraqi leaders and leaders of the major Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties — “the people who will have to do the hard work of political reconciliation,” said a senior administration official.

In meetings with Iraqi leaders, Mr. Cheney planned to emphasize the urgency of the situation, said the administration official traveling with him. “Everybody’s got to sit down, raise their game, redouble their efforts,” the official said.

Mr. Cheney planned to spend time with senior Iraqi and American officials. It was his second trip to Iraq as vice president. His first was in December 2005.

Mr. Cheney was expected to urge Iraqi legislators to cancel plans for a two month recess this summer, plans that have annoyed American officials because of the urgency of the situation in Iraq.

“That’s clearly part of the message,” said Ryan Crocker, the new American ambassador to Iraq, who traveled with the vice president from the United States. “It’s been part of the message now for some time. I’ve said it. Secretary Rice has said it. I’m confident the vice president is going to say it.

“The reality is, with the major effort we’re making, the major effort the Iraqi security forces and military are making themselves, for the Iraqi parliament to take a two-month vacation in the middle of summer is impossible to understand.”

Mr. Cheney planned to meet with Mr. Maliki’s key ministers, of Interior, Defense, Finance, Oil and Foreign, to meet with President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and to hold one-on-one meetings with each vice president.

In a joint press conference after a meeting with Mr. Maliki today, Mr. Cheney said that the two spoke about “the Baghdad security plan, ongoing operations against terrorists, as well as the political and economic issues that are before the Iraqi government.”

According to a transcript provided by the White House, Mr. Maliki said: “The meeting with the Vice President put the foundation for practical steps in order to support our efforts working on both the security front as well as the domestic political issues. We also have talked about regional issues and neighboring states.”

Early in the day, Mr. Cheney met with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, and with Mr. Crocker, who both gave him a lengthy briefing on the situation in the country. Mr. Cheney’s stop in Baghdad is the first on a broader trip to the Middle East. Later this week, he is due to visit the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. The Iraq stop was not announced in advance.

Reporters traveling with the vice president were only told of the Iraqi visit after their plane had left the United States. They were given the option of skipping the Iraq trip, but all chose to stay with Mr. Cheney. Some aides to the vice president, and his daughter, Liz Cheney, left the plane in England, and flew separately to the United Arab Emirates.

Four of those killed in the explosion in Erbil today were security guards, an Iraqi official said, adding that another 14 police officers from the Interior ministry were injured.

The truck was loaded with TNT, and when it went off, it damaged part of the Interior Ministry building as well as many houses nearby, the official said, calling it the largest terror explosion seen in the Kurdish area of the country so far. He added that officials had stepped up security in recent weeks because they had information about possible attacks in the area.

Jon Elsen contributed reporting.

I wonder how much of the explosive used in IEDs over the last year can be traced to Iraqi ammunition dumps left unguarded by US leaders in Iraq...

The UN weapons inspector team left a detailed report on all munitions dumps prior to the BushWar. The al Qaqqa dump was padlocked and contained 380 metric tons of RDX explosives.

BushCo instructed the Army to protect the oil ministry, not al qaqqa. When they finally got there a month later, it was empty.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/internat...ner=rssuserland

And it's recently been proposed that we ship them $500 million more in small arms, grenades and explosives (story was posted in the Cafe previously).

The US needs a Democratic Candidate to promote a Constitutional Amendment to Prohibit
the Waging of War as an instrument of US Foreign policy. Kucinich could do this but he doesn't need to prove his sponk. It could be a way for one of the other candidates to replace Kucinich
as the only liberal and progressive peace candidate with a vission for the Country (if there is another one in the group?)

If Osama wanted to go to north korea, what military would we have available to deal with it.
Answer; maybe the cub scouts are not so bogged down that they couldn’t respond. Our military, what’s left of it, can’t maintain the directives they’re already involved with.
You are just plane crazy thinking ANY American would want another 9-11. Get a grip gunny, reality is out there waiting for anyone interested enough to look for it.

Well Vaughn it's true. I've heard about all the torture stuff suppose to be going on at Gitmo. I went through worst stuff in Marine Corps boot camp than what these guys are complaining about.

Liberals worry more that some goon they got locked up at Gitmo is getting his milk and cookies than the American Soldiers the goon either killed or tried to kill while he was out running around loose.