The Experts’ View on Terror
Bush and several other Republicans say we’re winning the “war on terror,” and with a little patience we will win the Iraq War. Democrats and a few Republicans say we are not winning. Who is right? Maybe there are experts around who can tell us. Foreign Policy magazine together with Center for American Progress have a Terrorism Index, where they survey more than 100 real foreign-policy experts.
Here are some results of the latest Terrorism Index Survey:
Fully 91 percent say the world is becoming more dangerous for Americans and the United States, up 10 percentage points since February.Eighty-four percent do not believe the United States is winning the war on terror, an increase of 9 percentage points from six months ago.
No effort of the U.S.
government was more harshly criticized, however, than the war in Iraq. In fact, that conflict appears to be the root cause of the experts’ pessimism about the state of national security. Nearly all—92 percent—of the index’s experts said the war in Iraq negatively affects U.S. national security, an increase of 5 percentage points from a year ago.
The survey includes a lot more. Read the whole thing and have your eyes opened. You will see the situation, not through the distorted lense of the media, but through the eyes of experts, both Democrats and Republicans.
It’s time for a change in policy. It’s time to bring the Iraq War to an end and to start fighting real terrorists where they are - according to the experts, in Pakistan.

3 Responses to “The Experts’ View on Terror”
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The goal now, is to move enough Republicans to override a Presidential Veto to begin cutting funds for future operations in Iraq and direct those funds as available ONLY for safe and phased withdrawal and redeployment of troops capable of healthily handling redeployment.
That goal diminishes in importance as the election of 2008 comes closer. So, if it can’t be accomplished by the end of this year, regretfully, the GI loses that occur from ‘stay the course’ in 2008 will be on the hands of simple political expedience. A sad but, unavoidable consequence of a two party system incapable of working together
Should we go after Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida? Absolutely- for vengeance, if nothing else. But Al Qaida is the exception rather than the rule. It is exceptional because it does something few terrorist networks have ever done before- it takes an internationalist perspective.
In most cases, terrorism is used as a tactic to unseat a government which is perceived to be unjust. Often, this involves using terrorism as a tactic against a democracy occupying a region with a muslim majority.
It will take a long time for our country to regain its equilibrium. The perception that a “war on terror” should be our focus, the sheer fear pervading our terrorized perceptions, the deep insecurity and loss of confidence, motivating us to resort to military force in order to combat a problem which is most decidedly not military in nature, all this has done terrible harm.
We have lost our way
Now, I’m not saying that these people don’t have legitimate backgrounds in foreign policy, but so do a great many people who aren’t on that list. If we’re gonna poll people like that, why don’t we also poll Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, or for that matter, Condi Rice or Karl Rove? I saw a couple of prominent conservative names on there (like Daniel Pipes), but not many of significant stature—which makes me wonder what their criteria was for including “conservatives” to begin with.
I don’t deny that the poll says what it says, or even that the conclusions are correct. But I just don’t see what merit a poll has of such a small group of people when the list is composed according to criteria which are both arbitrary and anything but transparent