HOUSE LEADERS RESURRECT 9/11 ~ AVOID IRAQ DEBATE

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By Allen L Roland (about the author) Page 2 of 3 page(s)

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Another Bush administration agency, the National Counterterrorism Threat Center, found that 3,192 incidents of international terrorism occurred last year, resulting in the "deaths, injury or kidnapping of almost 28,500 people."

While the threat of international terrorism is diffuse, our military resources are concentrated in Iraq.

THE LESSON OF AFGHANISTAN:

The consequences of the administration's focus on Iraq, instead of the broader threat of terrorism, are on display in Afghanistan.

In the New York Review of Books, Ahmed Rashid describes a resurgent Taliban: "As recently as a year ago, the main Taliban groups were composed of a few dozen fighters; now each group includes hundreds of heavily armed men equipped with motorbikes, cars, and horses.

There have been forty suicide bombings during the past nine months, compared to five in the preceding five years."

The problem, according to the Washington Post's William Arkin, is that "the Bush administration naturally searched for an al Qaeda-Iraq connection to match its flawed assumption about its roots. And though it paid lip service to nation building, the task was seen as secondary to the big war."

The Bush administration, specifically Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, essentially decided "to abandon the Afghanistan campaign as soon as Kabul fell."

REDEPLOYMENT WILL DEFINE SUCCESS:

Boehner's resolution frames redeployment as a defeat in the war on terrorism. Not so. Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) explains, "Getting out of Iraq will define success in Iraq."

Iraqis, including the new Prime Minister, agree and are saying that Americans must begin to leave. Nearly nine in ten Iraqis approve a timeline for U.S. withdrawal, and 70 percent of the Iraqi public supports the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces by the end of 2007.

Once redeployment is complete, we will be able to refocus our military and strategic resources to combat terrorism effectively.

BOEHNER STRATEGY MEMO ADVOCATES UGLY TACTICS:

Media reports say Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) hopes to match the serious, dignified tone of deliberation that preceded the Gulf war, in 1991.

It looks like that's just spin. The Progress Report has obtained a Confidential Messaging Memo from Boehner instructing his caucus to conduct a very different kind of deliberation.

In the memo, Boehner instructs members to exploit the 9/11 tragedy, writing that linking 9/11 to Iraq is "imperative." (The 2 page memo mentions 9/11 seven times.)

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Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website more...)

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