It is interesting to hear the feeble spin from Conservatives on this recent intelligence report. You see, if we hadn’t invaded Iraq, everyone would be upset over something else we did. Hmmm. That’s the defense of a teenager: if my folks weren’t pissed at me for wrecking the car, they’d be pissed about something else. Even when that defense is true, it’s pathetic. The Neocons (and future cons, it seems) stole the car and drove it off the cliff. Now, they just don’t understand why everyone is so pissed off.

Oh, but better to fight them there than over here. Well, no duh. But maybe destroying Iraq to save it isn’t the best lesson of Vietnam. Al Qaeda did nothing to advance their cause in attacking us over here — NOTHING. We’ve done everything to advance the cause of senseless destruction by attacking everyone over there. But any discussion of strategy or tactics or goals is out of the question to those in power. And that is why they will lose that power, no matter how much they try to frighten us. mjh

Part of Iraq Intelligence Report Is Released By Michael A. Fletcher, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Bush administration yesterday released portions of a classified intelligence estimate that says the global jihadist movement is growing and being fueled by the war in Iraq even as it becomes more decentralized, making it harder to identify potential terrorists and prevent attacks.

The war in Iraq has become a “cause celebre” for jihadists, breeding resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and drawing new adherents to the movement, the assessment says. The growth in the number of potential terrorists is also being fed by corruption, slow-moving political reform in many Muslim countries and “pervasive” anti-American sentiment, according to the report.

The jihadist movement is potentially limited by its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam and could be slowed by democratic reforms in the Muslim world, says the document, which reflects the collective judgment of the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies. In addition, it asserts that if jihadists are perceived to be defeated in Iraq, “fewer fighters would be inspired to carry on the fight.”

Still, terrorists with experience constructing roadside bombs and other deadly devices in Iraq “are a potential source” of leadership in attacks elsewhere, the report says.
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Sobering Conclusions On Why Jihad Has Spread By Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writers

The overall estimate is bleak, with minor notes of optimism. It depicts a movement that is likely to grow more quickly than the West’s ability to counter it over the next five years, as the Iraq war continues to breed “deep resentment” throughout the Muslim world, shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and cultivating new supporters for their ideology.

FRONTLINE: coming soon: return of the taliban | PBS
coming Oct. 03, 2006 at 9pm (check local listings)

(60 minutes) FRONTLINE reports from the lawless Pakistani tribal areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and reveals how the area has fallen under the control of a resurgent Taliban militia. Despite the presence of 80,000 Pakistani troops, the Taliban and their supporters continue to use the region as a launching pad for attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan. Off limits to U.S. troops by agreement with Pakistan’s president and long suspected of harboring Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, the area is now considered a failed state. President Pervez Musharraf tells FRONTLINE reporter Martin Smith that Pakistan’s strategy, which includes cash payments to militants who lay down their arms, has clearly foundered. In a region little understood because it is closed to most observers, FRONTLINE investigates a secret front in the war on terror.

FRONTLINE: coming soon: the enemy within | PBS
coming Oct. 10, 2006 at 9pm (check local listings)

(60 minutes) Five years after the attacks on 9/11 and the massive, multibillion-dollar reorganization of government agencies which followed, FRONTLINE and New York Times reporter Lowell Bergman investigates the domestic counterterrorism effort and asks whether we are any better prepared to prevent another catastrophic attack. Relying on interviews with high-level sources in the U. S. government, Bergman reveals ongoing interagency rivalry as well as troubling flaws in what has been the largest reorganization of the government in half a century. The documentary focuses on who is the real enemy within the United States and whether we are prepared to defeat him.

FRONTLINE: coming soon: the lost year in iraq | PBS
coming Oct. 17, 2006 at 9pm (check local listings)

(60 minutes) In the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein, a group of Americans led by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III set off to Baghdad to build a new nation and establish democracy in the Arab Middle East. One year later, with Bremer forced to secretly exit what some have called “the most dangerous place on earth,” the group left behind lawlessness, insurgency, economic collapse, death, destruction–and much of their idealism. Three years later, as the U.S. continues to look for an exit strategy, the government the Americans helped create and the infrastructure they designed are being tested. FRONTLINE Producer Michael Kirk follows the early efforts and ideals of this group as they tried to seize control and disband the Iraqi police, army and Baathist government–and how they became hardened along the way to the realities of postwar Iraq. The Lost Year in Iraq is based on numerous first-person interviews and extensive documentation from the FRONTLINE team that produced Rumsfeld’s War, The Torture Question and The Dark Side.

GOP Scandals Dog Ohio Candidate By Jim VandeHei and Chris Cillizza, Washington Post Staff Writers

In a year when Republicans are battling low poll numbers nationally, there are few places where the GOP brand is more scuffed than in Ohio, where, since President Bush’s election-night triumph here two years ago, national and local scandals have polluted the political atmosphere for GOP candidates.

A poll released this week by the Columbus Dispatch indicated Democrats could sweep races for U.S. Senate as well as Ohio governor, auditor, treasurer and secretary of state. This would be a remarkable turnaround after 16 years in which Republicans have enjoyed uninterrupted control of the governorship and dominated most statewide races.

Save Yourself, Blame Bush – washingtonpost.com By Joe Scarborough

I can’t help but feel sorry for my old Republican friends in Congress who are fighting for their political lives. After all, it must be tough explaining to voters at their local Baptist church’s Keep Congress Conservative Day that it was their party that took a $155 billion surplus and turned it into a record-setting $400 billion deficit.

How exactly does one convince the teeming masses that Republicans deserve to stay in power despite botching a war, doubling the national debt, keeping company with Jack Abramoff, fumbling the response to Hurricane Katrina, expanding the government at record rates, raising cronyism to an art form, playing poker with Duke Cunningham, isolating America and repeatedly electing Tom DeLay as their House majority leader?

How does a God-fearing Reagan Republican explain all that away?

Easy. Blame George W. Bush. …

Republicans on the Hill [have done] little more than rubber-stamp Bush’s domestic and international agenda because lawmakers were intimidated by his power and his popularity with the Republican base.

Even when the administration would not give generals the troops they needed to win the war in Iraq, Republican leaders did nothing. When the president refused to veto a single spending bill while the deficit spiraled upward, Republican leaders looked away. And when chaos was reigning in the streets of New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast in Katrina’s horrific aftermath, Republican leaders remained mute.

That silence — proof that it is better to be feared than loved in politics — has had devastating results. The United States is more divided than ever, our leaders are despised around the world, our fiscal situation is catastrophic and congressional approval ratings are the lowest ever. Since nothing sharpens the mind like a political hanging, Republican leaders in the Senate and House are finally considering doing what effete newspaper editorialists have suggested for years: throwing Bush overboard.

Of course, the mere suggestion makes some Republican loyalists shudder. Being a faithful follower of Brother Bush has long been synonymous with loving Jesus, supporting the troops and taking a stand against sodomy. But no more. Many of the conservatives who put Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich in power are counting the days until Bush goes to Crawford for good. Some mutter that their leader’s governing style looks more like Jimmy Carter’s every day — and among that crowd, there is no harsher insult.

Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting U.S. Terror Fight By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer

The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the “centrality” of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document. …

The latest terrorism assessment paints a portrait of a global war in which Iraq is less the central front of actual combat than a unifying battle cry for disparate extremist groups and even individuals. “It is just those kinetic actions that lead to the radicalization of others,” a senior counterterrorism official said earlier this summer. “Surgical strikes? Nothing is surgical about military operations. They tend to have impacts, affects.”

That description contrasts with Bush’s emphasis this month on offensive military action in Iraq and elsewhere as the United States’ principal road to victory in the global war.

“Many Americans . . . ask the same question five years after 9/11,” he said in a speech in Atlanta earlier this month. “The answer is yes. America is safer. We are safer because we have taken action to protect the homeland. We are safer because we are on the offensive against our enemies overseas. We’re safer because of the skill and sacrifice of the brave Americans who defend our people.”

But “a really big hole” in the U.S. strategy, a second counterterrorism official said, “is that we focus on the terrorists and very little on how they are created. If you looked at all the resources of the U.S. government, we spent 85, 90 percent on current terrorists, not on how people are radicalized.”

Remember a few months ago, when gas prices passed $3 per gallon? People were angry and weren’t going to stand for it. Somebody should do something, they muttered at the pumps. Congressional hearings were held. Our commander-in-chief-executive, the failed oil tycoon, talked about hydrogen cars again.

Leave aside that it was ridiculous to be upset at such relatively cheap gas. Ignore that we haven’t had shortages like we had 30 years ago, during the oil embargo that taught us nothing except that we’ll pay anything for a fix (what an ironic use of that word).

Now, gas prices are in free-fall less than 2 months before a crucial election. Simple market forces at work? Or could it be:

(1) Corporations know that Republicans serve them better than Democrats;

(2) Foreign oil producers know that Republicans serve them better than Democrats.

Wouldn’t want the rabble roused. Go back to sleep. mjh