Howie Hamlin wrote: > invading Iraq has actually had the net effect of putting the weapons into the hands > of terrorists > more effectively than Saddam Hussein would or could ever have dreamed of.
I think what's salient is that you can make a reasonable argument that invading Iraq actually did cause more terrorism and provided more weapons to terrorists. Since you can't disprove that reasonable argument, that means you haven't achieved success. In the end, if you can't measure it, you can't achieve it. Mr. Bush has failed to put any measures in place to judge the war on terror. This means we're left with defining them - on just about all reasonable measures I can think of, invading Iraq has hurt the war on terror. Let's look at a few measure that aren't going our way: - Arab opinion about America's intentions: down. - Number of global terrorist attacks: record high. - Number of dictatorships known or thought to be producing WMD: up. - State of alliances with allies: down. - Progress in Israeli/Palestinian conflict: down. - Odds of near-term/long-term stability in middle east: down. - Deaths related to US terrorist enemys: up. - US military's ability to respond to a rogue country: down. - Presidential trust with American people: down. - Congressional trust with the President: down. - Wold trust of US intelligence: down. - American trust in national security: down. - Number of American civil liberties: down. - Strength of Americian dollar: down. - Number of Americans who think we're on the right track: down. - Suspected number of terrorists: up. - Probability of American fiscal crisis: up. - Probability of capture of terrorist figureheads: down. - Probability of democracy in the Middle East: down. Now let's look at the positive measures: - Number of middle east dictators: down. - Number of Muslim extremist countries: down. - Number of new democracies: up. - Number of al Queda leaders from 4 years ago: down. Overall, I'd say we're heading in the wrong direction. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Purchase from House of Fusion, a Macromedia Authorized Affiliate and support the CF community. http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=37 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:133432 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
