So is Bush doing wonders with homeland security in the US and military action in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond, revealing Al-Qaida as a over-rated adversary thast got lucky and saw a hole in peacetime America’s armor and exploited it with expertise - has it spent its magazine, doesn’t have another bullet, and no more 911's?
or is Al-Qaida reloading and the worst may be yet to come as the Dem's hinted at in the last debate?. CIA Director George Tenet said this year that "Al-Qaida is living in the expectation of resuming the offensive." but is Tenet playing intombin Laden's plan to ruin the US for good in the wider world and divide the west into opposing camps - or is that just Bush's plan?
Inquiring minds want to know :-)
But in any case some interesting folks say Bush's approach is wrong no matter how you look at the situation - Brent Scowcroft, the national security advisor to the first President Bush, sais "Our pre-eminent security priority — underscored repeatedly by the president — is the war on terrorism,..An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counter-terrorist campaign we have undertaken."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=10580http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1040063,00.html http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefings/winningorlosing.htmPost-September 11, George Bush began an unwinnable war on multiple fronts against a nebulous enemy. And two years on, a new study shows, the campaign has had little impact on its targets. Brian Whitaker reports <snip>
Professor Paul Rogers, September 2003 "The 'War on Terrorism': Winning or Losing?" says that Two years on, we are losing the 'War on Terror' -Since 9/11, over 350 have been killed in attacks linked to al Qaida, with close to 1,000 injured - Afghanistan remains deeply unstable -occupying troops in Iraq represent '140,000 targets' and lists out in detail the attacks, both thwarted and successful, in the past two years. He says the al-Qaida network has actually been more active than before 9/11 and is collectively showing a capability that exceeds that existing before the 9/11 attacks." - that Al Qaida has grown in strength over the last two years. And that Afghanistan is a disaster because the Military victory over the Taliban was achieved partly by "the provision of large quantities of armaments to Northern Alliance forces, with these armaments subsequently cascading through warlord militias in post-war Afghanistan, strengthening the power of individual warlords and diminishing that of the putative government of Hamid Karzai."
He then suggest Jeff Sach's - and Dennis K's - solution of just get out of Iraq - whatever bad this results in will be less bad than our getting out latter - see VietNam - and suggests:
development aid to Afghanistan
UN to take a central role in Iraq
more vigorous policies to deliver improved development assistance, debt relief and trade reform to narrow the global socio-economic divide
Take the lead in setting a pro-development agenda at the EU, G8 and appropriate UN bodies
View has to encompass the possible connections between terrorism, poverty and exclusion. The growing global socio-economic divide is leading directly to the growth of radical social movements, some of which are prepared to use violence."
"Iraqis must be enabled to develop a democratic and independent state that may well choose to distance itself from Washington."
"It should be possible to involve a wider range of states in peacekeeping, including Arab states… such progress would not be readily achieved without a much clearer and more consistent support for the Israeli/Palestinian peace process."
"It is self-deluding to believe that we can make ourselves more secure through solely military means. Security will unavoidably mean sharing out the world's resources more fairly. Groups linked to al Qaida draw support from local discontent over economic, political or social injustice - symbolised, for many, on a global scale, by the US determination to keep control of key resources - chiefly, oil."
Professor Paul Rogers' latest book is 'Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century'
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