Wednesday, July 18, 2007

National Intelligence Estimate - Failing Grade

The newly released sections of the NEI show al-Qaeda growing in strength in Pakistan and that piece a significant threat over the next 3 years. This, of course, prompts the White House to state that Iraq is the "central front" in the fight against terrorism and against al-Qaeda, because that is where they directly confront American troops. You do follow this don't you? We kicked them around in Afghanistan (after most had fled) and they headed over to Pakistan so we headed on over to Iraq where they weren't and made it possible for a new branch to open there so we could fight the ones that weren't in Pakistan where the ones were who launched the 9/11 attacks, included Mr Wanted Dead or Deader Bin Laden are holed up. But we knew they were there before the Iraq war and didn't want to offend Pakistan (nuclear).

General Mushareff who has been having some (a lot) of fundamentalist problems was having not too good a time in the tribal regions where al-Qaeda and the Taliban were hanging out. His troops tended to get slaughtered and mostly inconsequential targets were all that were weeded out. So the General, with Bushco's unenthusiastic blessing, got a truce with the tribal leaders; he'd leave them alone and they'd toss the foreigners. Yeah, sure. Not great results.

So the BushCo litany continues, we're fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq and if we don't they'll follow us home after they take over a country where they're not only out-numbered by bad attitude locals, they're out-gunned and generally loathed. Now you could argue about how much killing would go on after an American pull-out but a guaranteed result is a wiped out Sunni al-Qeada in Iraq. So George II will fight on (actually our kids will) until he's out of office and somebody else can take the blame for his debacle. If the BushCo arguments made any sense at all you could see something other than the most cynical of politics at work, if...

As a footnote, if Harry Reid doesn't make the BushCo acolytes pay in the Senate something is wrong.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read today that Chertoff has stated the Al-Qaedas have crossed our southern border...DUH, big surprise. Don't seal the borders cuz illegal cheap labor will be lost, which is more important than terrorists sneaking in. Does anyone in this administration get anything right or even close to sanity?

Jeff Alworth said...

That NIE was one of the most idiotic pieces of crap I've ever seen produced. And I have no confidence it doesn't represent an adminstration-approved version of national intelligence.

Anonymous said...

India abuses it's visa program with the united States, wouldn't be a connection between that and realizing the possibility that fundamentalists will over throw pakistani government and we might need an ally who doesn't get along to good with Pakistan is there?