Jochen, if those of us who have been unrelentingly critical of the the Bush Administration's "war on terrorism," and the war in Iraq, wanted confirmation that we were correct, what better source than the Bush Administration itself and a conservative newspaper?
The Washington Post article is a damning indictment of the Bush Administration's strategies:"
"Much of the discussion has focused on how to deal with the rise of a new generation of terrorists, schooled in Iraq over the past couple years. Top government officials are increasingly turning their attention to anticipate what one called "the bleed out" of hundreds or thousands of Iraq-trained jihadists back to their home countries throughout the Middle East and Western Europe. "It's a new piece of a new equation," a former senior Bush administration official said. "If you don't know who they are in Iraq, how are you going to locate them in Istanbul or London?"
But they're efficient, or are they?
The review may have been slowed somewhat by the fact that many of the key counterterrorism jobs in the administration have been empty for months, including the top post at the State Department for combating terrorism, vacant since November, and the directorship of the new National Counterterrorism Center. "We're five months into the next term, and still a number of spots have yet to be filled," Cressey said. "You end up losing valuable time."
..."They recognize there's been a vacuum of leadership," said a former top counterterrorism official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "There has been a dearth of senior leadership directing this day to day. No one knows who's running this on a day-to-day basis."
So finally, after years of missteps that have inflamed the Muslim communities, have cost young Americans their lives and the rest of us hundreds of billions of dollars that could have been well spent generating good will and undermining the underlying grievances that lend fuel to the extremism fires, we get this:
"The Bush administration has launched a high-level internal review of its efforts to battle international terrorism, aimed at moving away from a policy that has stressed efforts to capture and kill al Qaeda leaders since Sept. 11, 2001, and toward what a senior official called a broader "strategy against violent extremism."....But critics say the policy review comes only after months of delay and lost opportunities while the administration left key counterterrorism jobs unfilled and argued internally over how best to confront the rapid spread of the pro-al Qaeda global Islamic jihad."
Gee, do you think a "broader strategy against violent extremism" might have been something that would have occurred to them even before 9/11, or maybe afterwards, or maybe at least before they invaded Iraq?
What a bunch of arrogant, tunnel-visioned, righteous fools we have allowed to lead this great country. Ed |
