Results of Bush' War on Terrorism

We've been in Iraq two years now, and the reasons we were initially given for going into Iraq at first have collapsed. But we are safer from Terrorism now, right?

Anna Badkhen, Staff Writer at the San Francisco Chronicle writes:

"We're way beyond the claim that the war in Iraq was a distraction from the war on terrorism -- it's more than that. It has made the war on terrorism far more difficult to execute," said Jessica Stern, a lecturer at Harvard University and author of "Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill."

"It has made the terrorism problem worse."

Bush has big ideas, but no plans for successfully carrying them out. As a result, we invaded Iraq (although al Qaeda and bin Laden were in Afghanistan) and out military was able to punch through the Iraqi troops in three weeks. Of course, it was military planners who were resopnsible for that, using the military left by Bill Clinton.

But then the political planners became responsible. Looting was rampant (we had insufficient troops to stop it for political reasons - Rumsfeld wanted to prove something), Garner was replaced in six weeks (no reason given, but probably he wouldn't go along with the ideological planning of the Republican Party apparatchiniks. In particular, I heard that he wouldn't disband the Iraqi military since we didn't have enough troops there to pacify the country.)

Bremer replaced Garner, and he did disband the Iraqi military and police forces. Then he gave the Iraqi secret police files to Ahmed Chalabi and placed him in charge of de-Baathifying the Iraqi government - which meant getting rid of all the experienced people in it. Then Bremer wasn't able to give away the Iraqi economy fast enough, couldn't stop the insurgency from growing, and was beaten out by the oil company executives who wouldn't go along with breaking up and selling off the Iraqi oil industry. Then they couldn't get the Iraqi's themselves to accept Chalabi as their new "President for Life."

In fact, Mullah al Sistani forced Bush to accept early elections to create a new Constitution and government for Iraq. Bush didn't like it, but now he is taking credit for "bringing democracy to Iraq." Bush really wants permanent bases for Americans in Iraq, but the insurgents have U.S. troops so jumpy that they are killing people left and right. With that kind of PR, we won't be staying one second past the time the Iraqis can protect their own government. In the meantime, the insurgents are using the large numbers of troops in Iraq to train terrorists to kill Americans.

And stopping terrorism? It is a part time job for the Bush people. They do what they can, if they get time and resources. But of course, Iraq gets most of that first.

America will be paying for the Republican idiocies for the next 50 or more years.