Ruminatrix
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Friday, May 16, 2003
National Insecurity
This week's bombings in Saudi Arabia, timed to coincide with Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit, prompt NYT columnist Paul Krugman -- who usually focuses on budgets and taxation sleight-of-hand -- to ponder: Did the war on Iraq provide a respite for Al Qaeda to regroup?
The central dogma of American politics right now is that George W. Bush, whatever his other failings, has been an effective leader in the fight against terrorism. But the more you know about the state of the world, the less you believe that dogma. The Iraq war, in particular, did nothing to make America safer — in fact, it did the terrorists a favor.
How is the war on terror going? You know about the Riyadh bombings. But something else happened this week: The International Institute for Strategic Studies, a respected British think tank with no discernible anti-Bush animus, declared that Al Qaeda is "more insidious and just as dangerous" as it was before Sept. 11. So much for claims that we had terrorists on the run.
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