24 September 2006

Throw da bums out!

Need a simple, compelling reason to vote the current leadership in Washington, both Republican and Democrat, out of office in November and, more thoroughly, in 2008?

Read:

"A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

"The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

"An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

"The report 'says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,' said one American intelligence official."

Pass it on.

Once we’ve booted the incompetents, the fools, the enablers and the downright wicked out of American government, what then? How will we deal with the terrorists they inspired and created?

How about addressing and working to mitigate the underlying issues that make people desperate and angry enough to strap bombs to their bodies and blow themselves up in crowded places in the first place?

I’ll defer to my smart friend Will for a thoughtful explanation. Do go read.

1 comment:

Kevin Wolf said...

Address the underlying issues? Good luck. There's more important work to be done - like legalizing torture.