More than one way to look at something

Today’s online edition of the New York Times, as well as other media, reported: “A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

“The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee…

"The intelligence estimate … represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled ‘Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

“An opening section of the report, ‘Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,’ cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology… The report ‘says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,’ said one American intelligence official.”

Sen. John McCain on CBS’ Face The Nation this morning, when asked about the report, said he believed it reinforced the importance for us to “stay the course in Iraq.” Yes, he actually used those words!

Interestingly, what I understood the report to be was a devastating blow to the credibility of George Bush and his rationale for the starting the Iraq war and for our ongoing involvement. What I got from the report was that if we continue with the current administration’s policies, we will not become more safe from a terrorist threat, but even more at risk. What I saw in the report is that George Bush is al Qaeda’s best recruiting tool. What I concluded from the report was that the U.S. is part of the problem in Iraq, not the solution.

Global terrorism is a threat; I’m not denying that. But what many of us have argued previously, and what this intelligence report seems to confirm, is that the war in Iraq is not, despite what George Bush says, the way to meet that threat. Indeed, it is exactly the wrong way to meet that threat.