GWBs Failed GWOT

It's just a matter of time seems to be the consensus. Great just great. Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here. Wasn't that one of the justifications for our current debacle in Iraq? How do you ask someone to be the last person to die for a mistake? Especially one that didn't make their family safer? What exactly are our troops dying for? Inquiring minds would like to know.

TheStar.com - War on terror called failure: "In its first 'Terrorism Index,' released yesterday, the influential journal Foreign Affairs found surprising consensus among the bipartisan experts.

Some 86 per cent of them said the world has grown more, not less, dangerous, despite President George W. Bush's claims that the U.S. is winning the war on terror.

The main reasons for the decline in security, they said, were the war in Iraq, the detention of terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay, U.S. policy towards Iran and U.S. energy policy.

The survey's participants included an ex-secretary of state and former heads of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, along with prominent members of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment.

The majority served in previous administrations or in senior military ranks."

{snip}

"The reason is that it's clear to nearly all that Bush and his team have had a totally unrealistic view of what they can accomplish with military force and threats of force."

Some 82 per cent of participants said a pressing priority for the U.S. is to end its dependence on foreign oil.

"We borrow a billion dollars every working day to import oil, an increasing share of it coming from the Middle East," commented former CIA director James Woolsey.

"In Saudi Arabia, billions are transferred to the Wahhabis and like-minded groups who then indoctrinate young people to hate Shiites, Sufis, Jews, Christians and democracy, and to oppress women horribly."

The analysts were also highly critical of the U.S.'s intelligence and national-security apparatus.

The Department of Homeland Security, created in the aftermath of 9/11, was rated for effectiveness at only 2.9 out of 10. Changes in the intelligence structure were assessed at "poor to fair," with one participant noting that reform "in most cases has produced new levels of bureaucracy in an already overly bureaucratic system.""

When in doubt, shuffle paper. The phrase "good enough for government work" needs to become a source of pride, not derision. Whatever happened to the GOP mantra of "smaller government"? Why doesn't anybody in the administration ever worry about protecting this country, instead of restricting American freedoms and invading our privacy in an effort to control people who have done nothing wrong? Why must innocent Americans pay the price for Bush's hubris?

Tags: Bush, terror, bureaucracy, terrorism index, Iraq