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| February 14, 2007 |
| Losing Both Debates | ||
| Go Beyond The Headlines | ||
| Coffee and Donuts Not Included | ||
 For news and updates throughout the day, check out our blog at ThinkProgress.org. |
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This week, the House of Representatives is debating a resolution
opposing President Bush’s escalation in Iraq. The resolution is just 58 words long, and has only one purpose: “Disapproving of the decision of the President announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.” But a leaked letter obtained yesterday by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s (D-MD) office reveals that some conservatives have formulated a strategy to avoid talking about the central question of the debate. In the letter, leading conservative Reps. John Shadegg (R-AZ) and Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) inform their allies: “The debate should not be about the surge or its details. This debate should not even be about the Iraq war to date, mistakes that have been made, or whether we can, or cannot, win militarily.” Shadegg and Hoekstra warn that, if conservatives are forced to debate “the surge or the current situation in Iraq, we lose.” Instead, they write, “the debate must be about the global threat of the radical Islamic movement.” The problem is they lose that debate too. Yesterday, the Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy magazine released their second "Terrorism Index," a bipartisan survey of America's top national security experts. The consensus: the world is growing more dangerous, and America is losing the war on terror. (Read more about the survey, including the full results, methodology, and list of participants.)
THE THREAT GROWS: "America’s leaders like to say that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, represented a watershed," the new survey notes. "After that fateful day, Americans were told, problems that had been allowed to linger -- terrorist sanctuaries, dangerous dictators, and cumbersome government bureaucracies -- would no longer be neglected and left for terrorists to exploit." Yet, over five years later, Americans are more skeptical than ever that the United States has effectively confronted the threat of terrorism. Just 21 percent of Americans approve of Bush's handling of the issue, according to the latest AP/Ipsos poll. Their frustration is shared by top national security experts. Eighty-one percent of Terrorism Index respondents "see a world that is growing more dangerous for the American people, while 75 percent say the United States is losing the war on terror." Seventy percent say Bush does not have a clear plan to protect the United States from terrorism -- including nearly 40 percent of those who identified themselves as conservatives. More than 80 percent of the experts continue to expect a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 within a decade.
THE IRAQ SINKHOLE: Among the 81 percent of experts who believe the world is becoming "more dangerous" to the United States, a large plurality identified the Iraq war as the primary cause. These results are supported by the findings of the National Intelligence Estimate released last fall, which stated that "the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives," and that Iraq "has become the “cause celebre” for jihadists." The result, the NIE stated, is that "activists identifying themselves as jihadists...are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion." Sixty-six percent of respondents believe that Bush's escalation strategy is a bad idea. Perhaps more importantly, 92 percent said that the Bush administration’s performance on Iraq has been below average, with nearly 6 in 10 experts of all political stripes saying the Bush administration is doing the “worst possible job” in Iraq. Fully 88 percent of the experts believe the war in Iraq is undermining U.S. national security.
THE WRONG 'SURGE': Afghanistan was the first front in the post-9/11 effort to combat terrorists, and it is now being neglected. Last year was the bloodiest since the United States overthrew the Taliban in 2001. Attacks against U.S. and NATO forces have risen fourfold in the past 12 months, with Taliban fighters adopting many of the tactics used by Iraqi insurgents. (An overwhelming majority of the survey’s experts -- 83 percent -- say that the fundamentalist Islamist group has strengthened in the last year.) Opium production, which provides more than 90 percent of the world’s heroin, "broke all records in 2006," and intelligence on Osama bin Laden "has gone cold." Nearly 70 percent of experts say the U.S. should be surging forces not in Iraq but in Afghanistan. The experts also voiced strong concern about Pakistan. "Asked to choose the country most likely to become the next stronghold of al Qaeda, Pakistan (30 percent) was rated second, just behind Somalia (34 percent, but that was before Ethiopia's recent military campaign there), and 91 percent of the experts said the U.S. must increase pressure on Pakistan to crackdown against Taliban and al Qaeda militants in tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border." The Center for American Progress has an aggressive, comprehensive anti-terrorism plan that redeploys U.S. forces out of Iraq and doubles forces in Afghanistan.
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MILITARY -- U.S. MILITARY CONCERNED THAT TV SERIES '24' IS PROMOTING TORTURE IN THE RANKS: On Monday, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point "confirmed that Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan recently travelled to California to meet producers of the show, broadcast on the Fox channel. He told them that promoting illegal behaviour in the series -- apparently hugely popular among the US military -- was having a damaging effect on young troops." Numerous conservative pundits have cited 24 as a sanction for harsh interrogation practices. For example, radio host Laura Ingraham has said that the "average American out there loves the show 24. OK? They love Jack Bauer. They love 24. In my mind that's close to a national referendum that it's OK to use tough tactics against high-level Al Qaeda operatives as we're going to get." In a recent interview, actor Keifer Sutherland -- who plays the lead character Jack Bauer on the show -- noted, "You torture someone and they'll basically tell you exactly what you want to hear, whether it's true or not, if you put someone in enough pain," he said. U.S. intelligence officials have said that torture is extremely ineffective. Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence has said, "I am absolutely convinced...no good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tell us that." David Danzig, the head of Human Rights First argued that unfortunately, the "image of the U.S. and its military [being involved in torture] is being affirmed" by the torture practices employed in the show. Undoubtedly, the Vice President's sanction of tactics such as waterboarding also contributes to that image. |
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The California Senate became the “first state legislative body in the nation” to pass a resolution opposing Bush’s escalation plan. “Progressive political organizations are pushing statehouses across the country to approve resolutions opposing the proposed troop surge. Resolutions have been introduced in about 20 states.” “The number of waivers granted to Army recruits with criminal backgrounds has grown about 65 percent in the last three years, increasing to 8,129 in 2006 from 4,918 in 2003.” The U.S. military has acknowledged that a Marine helicopter that crashed last week in northwest Baghdad was shot down, after initially denying that it was downed by insurgents. This incident marks seventh downing of a helicopter in the past month. The chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq said that Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has left the country and is believed to be in Iran. But an Iraqi government official claimed Sadr was in Iraq as recently as Tuesday night, when he received delegates from several government departments. The New York Times reports that at least 24 conservatives in the House of Representatives are expected to vote for the anti-escalation resolution. The White House is resisting a congressional request for Al Hubbard, the director of the National Economic Council, to testify about the administration’s fuel economy proposal. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) plans to hold a hearing to discuss Bush’s plan to upgrade the federal fuel efficiency requirements for new passenger cars. And finally: Happy Valentine’s Day! Political matchmaking sites are springing up to help you “find Mr. Right (or Ms. Left).” Sites like ActForLove.org help progressives find love, while ConservativeDates.com helps conservatives. “It would get a little tiring if I had to sleep on the couch every time my girlfriend and I got into an argument over watching Fox News or listening to Air America,” said conservativematch.com user Michael Cunningham. |
