Yesterday’s news… today

I’m not sure what to make of the Senate’s “reverse filibuster” (where the majority does all the talking and suffering, in a very strange bit of political theater) over the Iraq war… but I’m quite sure that WaPo gets it right in this analysis of the recent National Intelligence Assessment which indicates that Al Qaeda appears stronger than at any point since 9-11 to tell us that this is the case precisely because we invaded Iraq and bungled efforts at dealing with Qaeda directly, allowing its leadership to regroup and form a new safe-haven in a new failed state (North and South Waziristan in the Pakistani “tribal areas” near the Afghan border).
Well, well. Didn’t John Kerry say this sort of thing, for which our media proudly savaged him? Oh right… we want steady resolve, even when it is wrong and stupid, than a waffler. That’s right!
Well, it turns out that stupid policy actually leads to bad results… like a rejuvenated al Qaeda, whose strongest affiliate, the very-loosely aligned (and so-called) “al Qaeda in Iraq” didn’t even exist before we invaded in 2003, because Saddam would never have stood for such a group, and was capable of crushing it (something we seem… not to be.)
And on the theme of counter-productive policies in the “war on terror”, recent interviewee Mike Otterman sends us this from Vanity Fair documenting just how flimsy a basis this nation had to lower itself to the realm of our most reviled enemies by engaging in brutal torture (which is and always will be counterproductive to getting useful information). As I wrote to Mike, it seems the article has identified America’s own Dr. Mengeles (Drs. James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen) who, as noted, aren’t even medical doctors.
This truly is the land of opportunity.