About that anti-terrorism strategy...

Mission Accomplished

By Rick Horowitz

We didn't bring them to justice -- we brought them to Baghdad.

Way to go, Mr. President.

And "Wanted: Dead or Alive"? Well, they're still alive -- alive and getting stronger all the time. And they're still wanted. Almost six years later, they're still wanted. And they're still plotting.

Nice job, Mr. President. I'll bet you're proud.

The rest of us, meanwhile -- the ones who've read, or even heard about, the devastating "key judgments" of the latest National Intelligence Estimate -- are experiencing somewhat different emotions. Frustration. Apprehension. Sadness. And when we let our guard down, sheer unadulterated fury.

We've wasted so much time, we're thinking to ourselves, and so many lives, and so many hundreds of billions of dollars, and this is what we've got to show for it? A resurgent al-Qaeda still coming after us, only with more recruits, and more affiliates to call on for assistance? Recruits we helped motivate? Affiliates we helped create?

This is progress...how?

Yet the president prattles on. In his alternate universe, when we invaded Iraq, we went "on offense," which is BushSpeak for "We went after the wrong guys."

In his alternate universe, fighting with "al-Qaeda in Iraq" is the same thing as fighting with al-Qaeda central -- the actual, original al-Qaeda, still safely ensconced in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- because, don't you see, they both have "al-Qaeda" in their names!

I can call myself "al-Qaeda in Milwaukee" -- it still doesn't make me Osama bin Laden.

The people fighting us in Iraq, the president likes to say, are the same people who attacked us on September 11. The fact that "al-Qaeda in Iraq" is only one of many contributors to the carnage there -- and not nearly the largest, according to the president's own military advisers -- doesn't keep the president from spewing his soundbites. And the fact that "al-Qaeda in Iraq" didn't even exist on September 11? No more than a speed bump on George Bush's sprint to self-justification.

"But Zarqawi was in Iraq before 9/11!" the president's apologists shout endlessly, as if repeating it often enough will somehow retroactively transform that one man, evil as he was, into a full-blown organization. It won't work. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" didn't happen until the U.S. invasion of Iraq happened, wouldn't have happened unless the U.S. invasion of Iraq happened. The rules of cause and effect aren't suspended just because this president finds them inconvenient.

"But we haven't been attacked again since 9/11!" the apologists cry. "That proves the president's strategy is working!"

Actually, it doesn't prove any such thing. But don't take my word for it -- do the math. From September 11, 2001 to July of 2007 is just short of six years without an attack on American soil. That's pretty good.

But the first attack on the World Trade Center wasn't on September 11, 2001, you'll recall. It was on February 26, 1993 -- eight years earlier. So after that first attack, we went more than eight years without an attack on American soil -- did that mean Bill Clinton's strategy was working?

Or did it mean that these people take their time?

And when you come right down to it, why shouldn't they take their time? The longer we're bogged down in Iraq, the stronger our enemies get. We're handing them thousands of new, battle-tested, explosives-trained recruits, with new scores to settle. Meanwhile, the billions we're throwing down the rathole in Iraq are billions we're not spending to secure our ports or protect our railroads or equip our first responders or...

We couldn't have handled it more horribly if we'd tried -- and we'll be reaping the whirlwind for generations.

Thanks, Mr. President.

Posted 7/19/07. Rick helps you cut through the rhetoric -- spread the word!

Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist, TV commentator, writing coach and public speaker.

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