Richard Clark and Bu$hCo's Puppy Dog Theory

I never did get around to reading Richard Clark's Against All Enemies yet certainly followed the coverage the work and his testimony received. Wednesday's New York Daily News had a nice op-ed from Mr. Clark that I thought I'd share.

Here's what I consider as the best portion:

Of course, nothing about our being "over there" in any way prevents terrorists from coming here. Quite the opposite, the evidence is overwhelming that our presence provides motivation for people throughout the Arab world to become anti-American terrorists.

Some 100,000 Iraqis, probably more, have been killed since our invasion. They have parents, children, cousins and fellow tribal clan members who have pledged revenge no matter how long it takes. For many, that revenge is focused on America.

At the same time, investing time, energy and resources in Iraq takes our eye off two far more urgent tasks at hand: one, guarding the homeland against terrorism much better than the pork-dispensing Department of Homeland Security currently does the job; and two, systematically dismantling Al Qaeda all over the world, from Canada to Asia to Africa. On both these fronts, the Bush administration's focus is sorely lacking.

Richard Clark's book, like that of the CIA's George Tenet which is just around the corner, and plenty of others will be part of the very interesting and yet so sad history of the Bu$hCo years. I truly think in time you'll have people either denying they voted for old Dubyah or making some interesting excuses of why they did so. Certainly our corporate Big Media, Karl Rove's tricks combined with the GOP machine's discipline, dreadfully flawed Democratic campaigns/consultants ... will provide cover for some denying their support. Still, the majority of informed and intelligent Americans I knew in 2004, and 2000 to a lesser extent, did not support Bu$hCo.

Truly Iraq was a disaster. Would that we could salvage something from the many failures. If another administration was handling perhaps we could even yet. John Kerry, and the other grown ups that actually had combat and other experience that he'd have brought into his administration, would have had two years now, but for Ohio and the fear-mongering of 9-11 and gay marriage. I often wonder what our foreign policy, including military force, would look like now. Peace ... or War!