A Rand Corp. study makes some very good points on why it was wrong to turn the 9/11 attacks into the War on Terror the way we did:

"The study by the nonpartisan Rand Corp. also contends that the administration committed a fundamental error in portraying the conflict with al-Qaeda as a 'war on terrorism.' The phrase falsely suggests that there can be a battlefield solution to terrorism, and symbolically conveys warrior status on terrorists, it said.

"'Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors,' authors Seth Jones and Martin Libicki write in ' How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al-Qaeda,' a 200-page volume released yesterday. . . .

"The authors call for a strategy that includes a greater reliance on law enforcement and intelligence agencies in disrupting the group's networks and in arresting its leaders. They say that when military forces are needed, the emphasis should be on local troops, which understand the terrain and culture and tend to have greater legitimacy.

"In Muslim countries in particular, there should be a 'light U.S. military footprint or none at all,' the report contends.

"'The U.S. military can play a critical role in building indigenous capacity,' it said, 'but should generally resist being drawn into combat operations in Muslim societies, since its presence is likely to increase terrorist recruitment.'"

An excerpt from the report: "A key part of [a successful] strategy should include ending the notion of a war on terrorism and replacing it with such concepts as counterterrorism, which most governments with significant terrorist threats use. The British government, among others, has already taken this step and abjured the phrase war on terror. The phrase raises public expectations -- both in the United States and elsewhere -- that there is a battlefield solution to the problem of terrorism. It also encourages others abroad to respond by conducting a jihad (or holy war) against the United States and elevates them to the status of holy warriors. . . .

"Our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism. Military force usually has the opposite effect from what is intended: It is often overused, alienates the local population by its heavy-handed nature, and provides a window of opportunity for terrorist-group recruitment."

That makes a lot of sense now. I doubt any of us would have thought that way seven years ago.

The Bush Administration is cutting funds for counterterrorism efforts across the country. Must mean the War on Terror is over. How about bringing those troops home now?

You've heard about the now-discounted report that Clinton turned down a deal from Sudan to turn over Osama Bin Laden. But it seems that the Taliban offered the same deal to Bush in February, 2001. Watch the video.

Condi Rice shot back this morning at Bill Clinton, to say they did try to get Bin Laden before 9/11.

Oh really? Think Progress lays out the reactions of both adminstrations concerning warnings of terrorists attacks:

The 9/11 Commission Report contradicts Rice's claims. On December 4, 1998, for example, the Clinton administration received a President's Daily Brief entitled "Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks." Here's how the Clinton administration reacted, according to the 9/11 Commission report:

The same day, [Counterterrorism Czar Richard] Clarke convened a meeting of his CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group] to discuss both the hijacking concern and the antiaircraft missile threat. To address the hijacking warning, the group agreed that New York airports should go to maximum security starting that weekend. They agreed to boost security at other East coast airports. The CIA agreed to distribute versions of the report to the FBI and FAA to pass to the New York Police Department and the airlines. The FAA issued a security directive on December 8, with specific requirements for more intensive air carrier screening of passengers and more oversight of the screening process, at all three New York area airports. [pg. 128-30]

On August 6, 2001, the Bush administration received a President's Daily Brief entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S." Here's how the Bush administration reacted, according to the 9/11 Commission report:

[President Bush] did not recall discussing the August 6 report with the Attorney General or whether Rice had done so.[p. 260]

We have found no indication of any further discussion before September 11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States. DCI Tenet visited President Bush in Crawford, Texas, on August 17 and participated in the PDB briefings of the President between August 31 (after the President had returned to Washington) and September 10. But Tenet does not recall any discussions with the President of the domestic threat during this period. [p. 262]

Hurray for Glen Greenwald, whe searched the historical archives to show how the Republicans are the original cut & runners from Islamic terrorism. Check it out.

Well, the big dog finally got off the porch. Bill Clinton's face-off with Chris Wallace on Fox News is what the Dems have needed for a long time.

Clinton has been very quiet these last six years, trying to act like the statesman. But in that time, there has been an unrelenting effort to revise the history of his presidency in order to serve the political spin of the Republican party.

The narrative that I hear every day is that even if you think George W. Bush is a total disaster, at least he is doing something, because Clinton did nothing to combat terrorism, and everything is his fault anyway.

What Clinton did this weekend was to point that he did plenty, far more than the Bush team did.

But it's more than just staightening out the facts that is important. It's the shrillness of the defense that should wake Democrats up and get them to fight. They need to destroy this narrative of Clinton as a do-nothing president. The facts are on the Dems' side. Clinton was actively engaged in going after Osama and the Taliban when he left office. But Bush dropped the ball until 9/11 gave him the chance to pretend he was a real leader.

If Democrats fail to take up the fight on this issue, then they deserve to get beat like a Gitmo detainee.

Well, imagine that:

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.

...as long as they are Christians.

Funny how Malkin and those of her ideological bent have no problem with muslim terrorists being imprisoned without due process, being put into secret prisons, tortured and tried with secret evidence, but they scream and yell if a Christian doesn't get the full Miranda Rights treatment.

Hypocrisy runs so deep on the right side of the spectrum, you have to wonder how long they can tread water before going under.

I have written many times in the past how the roots of our conflict in the Middle East go back to past actions we took, actions that satisfied short-term goals at the cost of long-term peace. Here we have the president of Pakistan pointing out the problems this has caused:

In a speech to the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee on Tuesday, Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf blamed the United States and the West for "breeding terrorism in his country by bringing in thousands of mujahideen to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and then leaving Pakistan alone a decade later to face the armed warriors," according to an article at Pakistan's Daily Times published on Wednesday.

There are a lot of unanswered questions in this story about Bush admitting that the CIA kept terror suspects in secret prisons:

President Bush on Wednesday for the first time acknowledged the use of secret CIA prisons outside U.S. borders to hold top suspects captured in the war on terrorism.

In a speech at the White House, Bush said captured terror suspects have been the best intelligence source in efforts to stop new attacks and listed attacks blocked because of this intelligence.

The CIA program has "saved innocent lives," the president said.

Bush said torture was not part of the program and he had not authorized any form of torture, saying American law forbids it.

It begs the question, why did the government have to keep these suspects in secret prisons? Was Guantanamo not secure enough? That doesn't wash. Why would the CIA need to move these suspects all over the world? Could they not be interrogated in this hemisphere?

There really is only one logical answer for why they needed secret prisons. There is a clue later on in this story:

Bush said Wednesday he would ask Congress for explicit rules so U.S. personnel are protected from abuse charges as they fight the war on terror.

Why would U.S. personnel have to worry about abuse charges if there was no torture?

The Supreme Court ruling on detainees forced Bush's hand here, and now everyone is trying to ignore the elephant in the room, the fact that these people were tortured.