"Does anything that the President has said, or what the this latest NIE has echoed suggest that we're losing the war on terror?"

Well, I don't know if I would say "losing" the war on terror, but I think report says, and I would agree, that the current strategy -- with the war in iraq as its focal point -- has made the problem of terrorism around the globe work and has been a giant step in the wrong direction in the GWOT.

As you show, it's reported to say the effect of invading Iraq has changed the terrorist threat... caused it to SPREAD across the globe while increases the ranks that are willing to join the cause.

I haven't pulled this analogy out in a while, but it seems to fit here. Going after terrorism with conventional military action is like Tom going after Jerry with a large mallet. You leave a path of destruction in your wake while not achieving your goal.

This latest NIE seems to support that analogy.

Despite all your spin, Mark, the report says the war in Iraq has made the problem of global terrorism worse, not better.

"with the war in iraq as its focal point -- has made the problem of terrorism around the globe work and has been a giant step in the wrong direction in the GWOT."

That should be "has made the problem of terrorism around the globe WORSE..."

this report merely underscores what we've known all along - that going into iraq was a strategic blunder of historic proportions. i'd say there is zero way the wingers can spin this in any way that makes their dear leader and the rubber stampers look good.

with regard to the classified portions, matt is correct to point out that we ought not "pop champagne" just yet until we see the full text of the report. of course, why in the hell is the rest of the report still classified in the first place? what else is hiding in there? i suspect items the administration would rather not have made to the public in advance of the election. sounds dire and disturbing.

If it doesn't rise to the level of fallacy, it still puzzles me that fighting an enemy should result in fewer active sympathizers with that enemy. They converge around the ideas and forces being attacked. Is peace achieved or maintained?

What is the contrary explanation? Is there one? If Islam produces potential Islamists, then their threshold of anger is rather low, with the result that one must base serious foreign and defense policy on the irrational expectations of others. Is that possible.

My own view is that this interpreation is linked to the overall "prestige" complaints of The Left, and their claim that the US has lost prestige by fighting Islamofascism (a term which troubles them). An America run by the Left is prestigious, whatever its actions.

What you defeatocRATS are disingenuously implying is the mistaken assumption that if we had not gone into Iraq that somehow the terrorists would at this moment be home knitting blankets. The terrorists were on the march long before Iraq. Need I mention all of the terrorist atrocities that took innocent lives that you imbeciles treated as "criminal investigations"?

So to now say that due to Iraq terrorism is spreading is a complete joke. It was spreading long before Iraq and thank goodness now we have a President who is trying to kill them instead of one who was more interested in defiling the White House, cheating on his "wife" and daughter and obstructing justice in an innocent woman's attempt to prosecute her abuser.

Slicky blue dress expended more energy the other day at a reporter asking him straight forward questions about his role in all of this than he did at trying to kill these islamic pr1cks.

Would you guys please start cheering for the good guys? Oh and by the way, that's the USA.

"What you defeatocRATS are disingenuously implying is the mistaken assumption that if we had not gone into Iraq that somehow the terrorists would at this moment be home knitting blankets."

I'm literally not reading one word after this sentence. Simply untrue, GOP.

I very straight-forwardly said that invading Iraq has been a step-back in the war on terror. I don't see anywhere in what I posted that comes close to implying that the threat of terrorism would have gone away had we not invaded Iraq.

I'm simply echoing what the NIE says--that invading Iraq has made the global problem of terrorism worse, not better.

Basically, it was a bad strategy.

What you defeatocRATS are disingenuously implying is the mistaken assumption that if we had not gone into Iraq that somehow the terrorists would at this moment be home knitting blankets. The terrorists were on the march long before Iraq. Need I mention all of the terrorist atrocities that took innocent lives that you imbeciles treated as "criminal investigations"?

GOP - i'm straining to decide whether or not to expend any effort to respond to your ridiculous hyperbole but here goes...

the implicit argument in the NIE (not our assessment you dimwit) is that BEACUSE OF OUR INVASION OF IRAQ, THE TERRORISM THREAT HAS INCREASED. IT HAS NOT MADE AS SAFER AS YOU WINGERS LIKE TO CLAIM.

in my mind, it is people like you who espouse a policy of ABJECT FAILURE who really "hate the US."

GOP 4 ME,

Nobody's implying that terrorism would not exist if we didn't go into Iraq. What the NIE says is that the Iraq War has made terrorism worse than it would be if we didn't fight the Iraq War. What's interesting is you don't even contradict that claim, you simply revert to standard wingnut rhetoric about how tough President Bush is and how awful President Clinton was. I take that to mean that you agree with the NIE's findings.

By the way: "cheering for the good guys"? This isn't a goddamn action movie. Democrats are interested in winning this war and defeating terrorism (I'm assuming thats what you mean by defeatocrats.) You bushbots seem to be interested in tough talk and cheerleading. Hopefully, we'll kick you incompetent boobs out of power soon enough.

What part of "worse" don't you guys understand?

You remember the book "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"? Well, if you do, you may recall that the only way that people from different planets/galaxies were able to understand each other was through the use of a nifty little item called a "Babel fish." You put this little creature in your ear and...voila! The creature would absorb the sound waves of any strange language and immediately transmit it to your brain in the language you understood. Hilarious literary device to keep the book moving along without all those pesky "scientific" questions about why everyone spoke English.

Well, see, the Bush supporters have their own version of a "Babel fish" crammed into their craniums. What it does, though, is to take rational criticism of the President and the Administration and convert it into anti-USA hate speech.

Example: You say "The NIE says that our invasion of Iraq has made global terrorism WORSE." They hear: "DOWN WITH AMERICA! WE HATE OUR OWN COUNTRY!"

You say: "This President, and in particular this Defense Secretary, mishandled this war from the beginning." They hear: "WE HOPE WE LOSE THE WAR!"

And so on. If it is criticism of Bush, it is criticism of America. To these people, the two are indistinguishable.

Well, see, the Bush supporters have their own version of a "Babel fish" crammed into their craniums. What it does, though, is to take rational criticism of the President and the Administration and convert it into anti-USA hate speech.

Well, wingers do seem to work with a dictionary that's quite different from the ones the rest of us use. It's sort of mystifying how dedicated they are to redefining words to fit their purposes, but I guess that's a requirement of hardcore partisanship: surrender critical thinking skills, embrace alternate universe.

There is zero way the wingers can spin this in any way that makes their dear leader and rubber stampers look good.

Well, it depends on the audience. If the audience is, you know, normal, rational people, then you're right. If the audience is fellow wingers, then of course they can spin it because their fellow wingers will make the same massive leaps of logic, the same fallacies, and the same bizarro world dictionary as they do.

"I'm simply echoing what the NIE says"

Yes echoing is what you do best. Try thinking sometime.

--that invading Iraq has made the global problem of terrorism worse, not better.

Could one of you mental midgets please show me one example in HISTORY where fighting an ideological/fanatical/religious enemy hasnt caused an upswing in their ranks. The Dims that act suprised at this reaction obviously never read a history book. Would you explain in what warped reality that fighting any enemy will have anything but that byproduct of polarizing some folks to join one side or the other.

Its a testament to your naive ignorance that you would expect anything but this to happen. News flash !!!! I'll bet some germans and japanese were upset by our fighting them too.

You people are truly stuck on stupid.

zoot - so then, bush's repeated claims that the war in iraq has made america safer is to be taken as a falsehood? bc, according to your logic, the war should, by its very nature, cause an "upswing in their ranks"? right. yeah i bet the public would have gone along with that one during the selling of this war. i thought the objective was to diminish their ranks...

btw - your WWII analogy is the incredibly ill-suited. like rove and bush, you think making tenuous comparisons to WWII will somehow justify and make magnanimous this bungled iraq invasion..

cyberactor - you make a very lucid point that i have been trying to drive how for some time. with a few exceptions on this blog, many rightwing commentators regress back to that exact tactic of equating challenging and questioning this administration with hating america and supporting the terrorists - like we live in some tyrannical society where dissent is seen as traitorous. sad reflection of the state of discourse today.

Are any of you willing to pay for this with tax dollars or are you going to let it all up to your children and grandchildren to pay for? God I'd like just a few of the dollars sent to Iraq to help me pay for my kids' education. How do you Republicans just willy nilly with no oversight give $350 Billion borrowed dollars and growing to Iraqi's that hate us. Why do you like them more than Americans? Is it just the oil?

WASHINGTON — The Army's top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of activity in Iraq plus its other global commitments without billions in additional funding.

Zoot: "Could one of you mental midgets please show me one example in HISTORY where fighting an ideological/fanatical/religious enemy hasnt caused an upswing in their ranks."

The obvious question is, if it was so obvious, why didn't the Bush war cabinet anticipate it? Exactly what constitutes "naive ignorance", and exactly how narrowly do you define "stuck on stupid"?

I ask that especially in light of the fact that, consistent with your conclusion, lots and lots of people in all sorts of important government positions, saw it coming. But the powers that be chose to ignore them.

President Bush said this after the NIE report. Why would he say almost the opposite of the NIE report? I question whether he actually read it.

"You know, I’ve heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived, and kind of “we’re going to stir up the hornet’s nest” theory. It just doesn’t hold water, as far as I’m concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East."

This is very interesting: "The Army's top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of activity in Iraq plus its other global commitments without billions in additional funding."

It sounds to me that the level of discontent has risen to such a level that even active service personnel are emboldened to the point where you don't even have to read between the lines.

The especially interesting part about it is that Rumsfeld essentially hand-picked Gen. Schoomaker for the Army chief of staff job. I wonder if he's going to find himself retired -- again -- very soon. Frankly, I think he'd make a fine Sec. of Defense (hint hint).

"You know, I’ve heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived, and kind of “we’re going to stir up the hornet’s nest” theory. It just doesn’t hold water, as far as I’m concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East."

Illegal aliens are pouring through the Mexican boarder. By your logic we should put a fence up on the Canadian boarder. One more time. The 911 terrorist were mostly Saudis trained in Afganastan.

Worse? No. Safer? Yes.

WASHINGTON - National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said Monday the jihad in Iraq is shaping a new generation of terrorist operatives, but rejected assertions, stemming from a leaked intelligence estimate, that the United States is at a greater risk of attack than it was in 2001.
"We are certainly more vigilant. We are better prepared," Negroponte said. "We are safer."

It has now come to my attention that Bush is de-classifying much of this.

The NYT and other willing fifth-column accomplices will have egg on their face--AGAIN...

oh yeah psyc - last time he declassified an NIE it had to do with...hmmmm... OH that's right - WMD and Al qaeda in Iraq! yeah, you can bet we'll be getting the very best of selective declassification that bush's filthy politics can buy.

I vote we stop fighting the war on terror altogether!
Then when the Blue States get hit again we can listen to the barking moonbat GoreKerrybots say we didn't do enough!
Damned if we do...damned if we don't!!