Logically Challenged

Commenting on the conclusion of a recent National Intelligence Estimate that the United States faces a greater threat from terrorism because of its war in Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld said today that "the implication that if you stop killing or capturing people who are trying to kill you, then therefore the world would be a better place, is obviously nonsensical."

Which pretty much ignores the point that the furor over the NIE's leaked conclusion follows from the suggestion that invading Iraq has had exactly the opposite effect from that desired and claimed by our stalwart defenders in the Bush administration. In short, Rumsfeld & Company not only didn't help by invading Iraq; they made things worse.

This war has by some accounts radicalized an entire generation of Muslims worldwide. The cancer has metastasized. And if the NIE's finding weren't enough, a leaked unfinished document (repudiated by the British government) by Britain's MI6 intelligence service says that the Iraq war is "acting as a recruiting sergeant for extremists across the Muslim world."

What an expensive mistake this has been. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service says the Iraq war is now costing the U.S. $2 billion per week. And that pales beside the lost lives and horrific violence.

Sadly, Rumsfeld's response to the NIE's indictment is to flail wildly at a straw man. Who's suggesting that we should "stop killing or capturing people who are trying to kill" us?

What is "obviously nonsensical" is the notion that all of this couldn't have been readily anticipated. Indeed, the NIE merely confirms what sane observers have been saying for years. That this hellhole we call Iraq is now a terrorist hotbed is a situation entirely of our own making. It certainly wasn't that under Saddam Hussein.

Way to go, Don.

Copyright (C) 2006 James Michael Brennan, All Rights Reserved