Notes From the Cave

The Terrorists Have Done Us a Favor

In a perverse way, the terrorists in Iraq have done the U.S. a favor by beheading the American contractor.

All of the world's attention had been directed to the inhumane treatment of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. forces. Admittedly, this is not America's finest hour. Nevertheless, the abuse, although sick, did not include indiscriminate murder, captured on video and shown to the world. The terrorists, however, chose to murder a man on video and proudly show it to the world, announcing that it was payback for the U.S. treatment of Iraqi prisoners.

It is one thing to abuse and humiliate a prisoner. It is another entirely to film an execution and publicize it.

Al Qaeda: Terrorist Group or Ideology?

I just read a very interesting online article from Foreign Policy, entitled Think Again: Al Qaeda. The premise of the article is that al Qaeda is more dangerous as an ideology than as an organization.

Although my gut tells me that the author, Jason Burke, is over-simplifying the issues, and is coming at them from a biased perspective, as well as painting a picture of a situation less dangerous than it really is, nevertheless, he makes some very interesting points.

For example, in talking about the status of al Qaeda in a post-911 world, Burke states:

Saudi Arabia Looks in the Mirror

I had the opportunity to watch Prince Bandar, the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the U.S., on Meet the Press yesterday morning. After watching the show, the most interesting segment to me was the one in which Bandar talked about how Saudi textbooks have recently been changed to remove objectionable material that supposedly was trashing Judaism, Christianity, Israel and western society as a whole. Additionally, Bandar went out of his way, on multiple occasions, to state that 911 was an "earthquake" to his society.

Richard Clarke On George W. Bush

Everything you need to know about Richard Clarke's opinion of President Bush and his war on terror can be summed up simply by quoting one paragraph from his book, Against All Enemies.

The quote is from the chapter entitled "Right War, Wrong War." The context of the quote is a discussion of the television interview President Bush did with Diane Sawyer of ABC News not too long ago.

In discussing how Ms. Sawyer kept pressing the President about his justification for the invasion of Iraq despite the inability to find weapons of mass destruction, the quote goes as follows:

Bush concluded on the subject with Diane Sawyer, saying again that his invasion of Iraq "means America's a more secure country." In fact, with out Army stretched to the breaking point, our international credibility at an all-time low, Muslims further radicalized against us, our relations with key Allies damaged, and our soldiers in a shooting gallery, it is as hard to believe that America is safer for the invasion as it is to believe that President Bush had good intelligence on weapons of mass destruction or that "this country was threatened with Saddam Hussein in power."

(at Page 267)

The quote requires no comment. It speaks for itself.

I strongly recommend that everyone who wants be informed about what is going on in the world read this book. You may not agree with its premise or its conclusions; nevertheless, it provides tremendous insight into the history of the war on terror and the actions of the Bush I, Clinton and Bush II administrations in dealing with this threat.

Slowly, the Facts Come to Light

Even though I am not a fan of President Bush, I knew that, despite what I had been reading, there had to be a coherent explanation for why Richard Clarke would be retained in his role as "terrorism czar" while being kept "out of the loop" on overall policy development.

In an article in today's New York Times, for the first time, I am reading about an explanation that seems to make some sense.