The Politics of Fear (MEGA BARFER!)

It had to happen. President Bush’s bungling of the war in Iraq has been the talk of the summer. On Capitol Hill, some of the more reliable Republicans are writing proposals to force Mr. Bush to change course. A showdown vote is looming in the Senate.

Yesterday, the director of national intelligence released a report with the politically helpful title of “The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland,” and Fran Townsend, the president’s homeland security adviser, held a news conference to trumpet its findings. The message, as always: Be very afraid. And don’t question the president.

Certainly, the report’s conclusions are disturbing. Nearly six years after 9/11, terrorism remains a huge threat.

If the report is given an honest reading, it is a powerful rebuke to Mr. Bush’s approach to the war on terror. It vindicates those who say that the Iraq war is a distraction from the real fight against terrorism — a fight that is not going at all well.

The administration, however, seized on the report and, through bald political timing, tried to use it to dampen calls for an end to Mr. Bush’s catastrophic war. That required some particularly twisted logic. Ms. Townsend, for example, dismissed a reporter who asked whether the fact that Al Qaeda has regrouped in the area from which it planned the 9/11 attacks suggested that it was a mistake to divert American forces to Iraq. She said Al Qaeda headed by Osama bin Laden and the terrorists in Iraq that use the name Al Qaeda are the same.

In fact, we’ve seen no evidence of that, and none was in the intelligence report, at least the page and a half of conclusions released to the public.

Yep, clearly the President is bungling a war in which we've won a clear military victory and only suffered just under 3,000 combat related deaths including FIVE YEARS of 'peacetime' occupation... Right.

That's not a war, that's a miracle - in our favor.

Compare that to Viet Nam, where we never beat our enemy in Hanoi, and lost well over 50,000 of our finest young people with no positive result.

The message, as always: Be very afraid. Well, intelligent people should be afraid. Idiots that are not afraid will look real cool until a building comes down on their head.

Nearly six years after 9/11, terrorism remains a huge threat. Since the President and everyone with credibility has agreed this is a generational war that those of us living today will not see the end of, does it not seem logical that only six years later terrorism remains a huge threat.

Al Qaeda has replaced leaders killed or captured by the United States, regrouped in its former home base in the tribal lands on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and is trying to use affiliated terrorists in Iraq “to raise resources and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives.” Does this author expect Al Qaeda to simply lay down and die because six years have passed? Wouldn't we replace our killed or captured soldiers?

If the report is given an honest reading, it is a powerful rebuke to Mr. Bush’s approach to the war on terror. It vindicates those who say that the Iraq war is a distraction from the real fight against terrorism — a fight that is not going at all well.
This statement is simply not true at all. The report neither rebukes the President nor his approach. In fact it reads to me like the tide may be turning in our favor. If while I'm shoveling 6 inches of snow off my driveway another 7 inches fall doesn't mean I'm wasting my time.

She [Fran Townsend] said Al Qaeda headed by Osama bin Laden and the terrorists in Iraq that use the name Al Qaeda are the same. In fact, we’ve seen no evidence of that, and none was in the intelligence report. I don't know where this guy lives, but I have seen evidence many times. Particularly from videos of Al Qaeda leaders that specifically say Iraq is the central front in the war. Who in the world does this genius think he is to claim that is NOT evidence. Is he suggesting that confessions from killers/criminals are no longer evidence?

This article is nothing more than a rambling thesis attempting to disassemble the administration's argument. The problem is that a second grade child has more logic than this author.

"Compare that to Viet Nam, where we never beat our enemy in Hanoi, and lost well over 50,000 of our finest young people with no positive result."

The invasion and occupation of the North was never our mission. The mission was to defend the South.

As for 'no positive result', I can think of a few. We killed over one million Communists for starters, and barely lost a single battle in over ten years against an enemy that was being aided by the two giants, the USSR and Red China. Another positive result was that the Communist tyrants found out that our military might was greater than theirs, by far. At one time the Soviets were making plans to roll into Western Europe with their tanks in the lead, but they discovered from Vietnam that they could never attack the U.S. or any of our allies, on our ground, and succeed.

The lenghty Vietnam war also drained the Soviet Union of much of their resources for over a decade, as they felt compelled to supply the North Vietnamese Army and vietcong with weapons systems, ammunition, intelligence gathering, vehicles, tanks, training, food and other materiel. This set into motion the early beginnings of the eventual economic and political collapse of the Soviet Union. They simply could not keep up with America economically and militarily, but we forced their hand and made the try, and the Vietnam War was part of that.

Vietnam was a showing to the entire Communist world the superior military might of the United States, and it sent a clear statement that we won't be bullied and we will help our friends. When you take the geopolitical events of the times into consideration, Vietnam was a sort of "line in the sand" message to the Reds that likely prevented a much bigger war, one that would have happened in Europe.

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