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Can you say "Losing"? "Other Than That, Mrs. Lincoln..."By Rick Horowitz
Suddenly the boxes are busy. New information will do that. Say you're the chart-making type -- topic headings and check-off boxes are how you keep track of things. There's nothing wrong with that, and certainly nothing to be embarrassed about. Now say you've got one particular chart -- on your laptop, or maybe you've super-sized it onto some enormous sheet of paper tacked up on your wall. "War in Iraq," the chart is called, because the war in Iraq is important, and you feel you need some way to keep up with it. The very first line in your chart is called "Saddam Hussein," and the two check-off boxes right under that say "Saddam Still in Power" and "Saddam Out of Power." And naturally you've got a big check in the second box: "Saddam Out of Power." That's a good thing.
After that, though, it's a bit more complicated -- and that's even before the new information came out. The third line in your chart is called "Weapons of Mass Destruction," and the two boxes right under that say "Found" and "Not Found." For the longest time, you didn't put a check in either of the boxes; you still figured it was a question of when, not whether. You've finally put a check in the second box, but you haven't entirely given up hope; between the word "Not" and the word "Found," you've scribbled the word "Yet." The fourth line in your chart is called "Violence," and the two boxes right under that say "Less Violence" and "More Violence." For a while, you had the check in the "Less Violence" box, but now you've had to erase it and move it to the "More Violence" box. Which eventually also meant switching the check in the next category -- "Iraqi Civil War?" -- from "Less Likely" to "More Likely." After that, it's a lot more complicated. And it's definitely because of new information -- that new National Intelligence Estimate that's been kicking up such a ruckus. Well, not exactly "new." The report has been around for months; it's just that some of its more explosive findings finally made it into the newspapers in the past few days. It's called "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States." And those implications are -- Well, just look at what it does to your chart. Where it says "Iraq War's Impact on Terrorists," your first two boxes are "Hurts Recruiting" and "Helps Recruiting." You'd better check the "Helps Recruiting" box; that's the NIE's conclusion, anyway. Your next two boxes are "Prevents New Generation of Terrorists" and "Trains New Generation of Terrorists" -- it's Box No. 2, says the NIE. That's unfortunate. In the category "Iraq War's Impact on World," the two boxes say "Confines Islamic Radicals to Iraq" and "Helps Spread Islamic-Radical Influence Worldwide." It's Box No. 2 again, says the NIE. That's really unfortunate. Then there's this one, the big one: "Overall Terrorist Threat Since 9/11." Your two choices are "Smaller Threat" and "Larger Threat." And the NIE's answer is? You guessed it: Box No. 2 once again. The overall terrorist threat has actually grown since 9/11. And the president's invasion of Iraq helped make it happen -- not that you'd know that from anything the president himself has said recently. He must have seen the NIE, yes? It's classified -- but he's the president. And it was apparently completed way back in April. Yet for months and months he's been giving speech after speech trying to paint a very different picture, claiming over and over again that the war in Iraq has somehow made us safer. So maybe you'll want to add one more category to your chart: "President and Reality." And the two boxes? "Won't Admit It" and "Can't Admit It." Your choice. Posted 9/27/06. Let Rick guide you past
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Rick Horowitz
