In the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Spain, Newsweek (3/22) wrote a cover story headlined "Europe’s 9/11"?
Here are three excepts:
1. "Now," says Milt Bearden, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan, "I think the [terror threat] has metastasized to the point where we haven’t got a clue where it will pop up next."
2. A former senior counter-terrorism official in the Bush Administration points out that "there have been more major terror attacks in the 30 months since 9/11 than in the 30 months before. I think we may have cut off alQaeda's head, but the rest of the body is working fine and has spawned 10 more smaller heads."
3. After all the attacks, from NY to Baghdad to Madrid, this much is painfully clear: the threat is spreading over a wider and wider area.
Thomas Oliphant of the Boston Globe wrote:
"The Spanish lesson is that fighting AlQaeda has clearly been undercut by the preoccupation with Iraq."
Of course, it has, just as some of us warned that it would. Iraq was a major distraction from, not a continuation of any so-called "war on terrorism."
So why – given that President Bush is seen by 50% of Americans as "strong" against terrorism - isn’t the Democratic candidate for President hammering away at that theme?
Because he isn’t Howard Dean.
Because he voted to give the President the right to go to war which makes it kinda tough to explain what Bush did wrong.
Too bad, huh?