Failures Piling Up In Bush's Alleged War On Terror

by Steve

If you want to see the failure of the Bush Administration/Neocon war on terror, you need look no further than Africa and Lebanon. Even though the CIA had been warning for years that the Horn of Africa was a strategic target of Al Qaeda, and even though the Bush Administration and its neocon intellectual brain trust had freely flogged the Clinton Administration for showing American weakness in Somalia, the administration failed over five years to establish a strong economic development and regional military presence in the area. Right under Cheney’s nose, while he was fixated on a threat that didn’t exist in Iraq, Al Qaeda and Islamic extremism has now taken hold of Somalia, whose new leader, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys today announced that the new government would be based on the Koran and its teachings. Oh, and did I mention that Aweys is suspected by Bush’s own State Department of being an Al Qaeda collaborator, and has been known as such since the days right after 9/11? And yet, here he is, taking control of a critical area of Africa after five years of the Bush Administration’s war against terror.

Remember when Condi and Bush were so adamant that Syria withdraw immediately from Lebanon? Guess who has moved into Lebanon now that the Syrian Baathists have left? Pat yourself on the back if you said Al Qaeda sympathizers, who are emboldened by developments in Iraq.

Aside from the blunder that is Iraq, look at how the Administration has bungled North Korea. Last week, Condi and other in the administration hyped an alleged imminent missile test as a major crisis, even though it turns out now that Pyongyang doesn’t even have the technology to mount a nuclear warhead onto a missile, and their missile program was deemed later in the week as rudimentary by Shooter himself. The hype did allow the administration to convince Japan that they needed to allow Patriot missile batteries in the country on American bases, though.

But after five years of seeing North Korea go fully nuclear right under Bush’s nose, seeing Iran become a regional power detached from any American influence, seeing Iraq become a new base for terrorism due to Bush’s war, a collapse of foreign support for our Unocal puppet Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, and now seeing the Horn of Africa fall fully into the hands of a suspected Al Qaeda collaborator, why does it seem so hard for Democrats to openly question this administration's competence in foreign policy?