Bush is losing three wars

The recently released National Intelligence Estimate does not show, at least in its unclassified portions, that Bush's various wars are going well.

Face it. The Bush administration's micro-management of the military, and its inability to respond to the recommendations of the professionals until it was too late, have resulted in the U.S. being mired in hopeless situations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

But both those wars were launched under the overall umbrella of Bush's "War on Terrorism," and the NIE is a damning indictment of the lack of success by the administration in that "war" as well.

There will always be terrorists, radical nuts who believe that targeting innocent civilians will achieve their goals -- which are usually extreme and a little frightening.

In this case, we're talking al-Queda, which has a vision of installing an extreme form of fundamental Islamic religious philosophy and government world-wide. That's never going to happen, but they can seize control of some countries, as they did in Afghanistan with the Taliban puppet regime serving as their front men, and as they are attempting to do now in the horn of Africa.

And no matter how good your security is (short of a highly repressive police state), they'll always be able to launch some form of attack that will kill innocents.

We blew our best chance to kill or capture bin Laden during the Tora Bora fighting in the early days of the invasion of Afghanistan, when Bush failed to push Pakistan into allowing our troops the ability to close off his escape routes. And he still hasn't pushed the point with Pakistan, allowing bin Laden today to thrive in the safe haven of isolated parts of the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.

Combined with Bush actually cutting back on covert counter-terrorism resources so he could fight the war in Iraq, today, according to the NIE, al-Queda is as strong as it ever was. And Iraq, which had virtually no al-Queda presence before we invaded, is now a hotbed of al-Queda operations and serving as a "live fire" training ground for the terrorists.

Furthermore, bin Laden is no longer the key to al-Queda, which has decentralized its operations around the globe. He's a figurehead today, and his death would make him a martyr to his followers, but it would no longer destroy the movement. Each of the various al-Queda cells can now operate independently, and would do so even if he were removed from the equation.

As a result of Bush's misguided policies, Al-Queda has become a many-headed hydra of horror that will strike at western secularism long after bin Laden is gone. Six years after 9/11 the entire western world is less safe than it was before. This cannot be considered success.

Bush wanted to be known as a great war leader. Unfortunately, he's shown that he's more a Santa Anna than an Eisenhower.

Bush has launched three wars. He's failing in all of them. A change in administration can't come soon enough.

-- Kelly Everitt