America’s self-inflicted war wounds

[TexasLawyer]

America’s self-inflicted war wounds
By Gideon Rachman

Published: September 10 2007 18:20

The symbolism of getting General David Petraeus to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the anniversary of 9/11 appealed to the White House. It should not have. It is crass. General Petraeus’s struggle to salvage the Iraq war merely underlines the fact that invading Iraq was a crazy way to respond to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

Six years after 9/11, the US needs to re-think. It is now clear that Iraq was the biggest blunder of the Bush years. It is also becoming evident that counter-terrorism should no longer be the centrepiece of American foreign policy. As the official 9/11 commission demonstrated, Saddam Hussein played no role in the terrorist attacks. He also had no nuclear weapons and no significant relationship with al-Qaeda.

But the Iraq invasion was not simply the wrong response to 9/11. It has actually made the terrorism problem worse in five significant ways.

First, it has diverted attention and troops from the war in Afghanistan. The Taliban are undefeated and al-Qaeda has re-grouped. Osama bin Laden is still alive and starring in home-made videos. Nobody is quite sure of his whereabouts – but he certainly is not in Iraq.

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/db8b3964-5fbd-11dc-b0fe-0000779fd2ac.html

[CJCRANE]

1. Journalist's never question B*sh's motives.

Here's a clue - nearly everything he's ever said is a lie. That means that the reasons he's given for "the war on terror" and the invasion of Iraq are false. Start from that premise and you (i.e. journalists) might actually start to make sense of it all.