Bush the Great Protector

Security Watch

Bryan Bender writes in the Boston Globe: "Some key measures experts have called for to thwart nuclear and biological terrorism have floundered since Sept. 11, 2001, increasing the risk that Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups will use a weapon of mass destruction and inflict far more civilian casualties, a government task force was warned yesterday.

"Just five blocks from the site of the 2001 attacks, a congressionally-appointed Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism panel heard sobering testimony from law enforcement officials and national security specialists who believe the country is now more vulnerable to a catastrophic terrorist attack than it was seven years ago - in part because the government has dragged its feet in defending against the threat. . . .

"'The situation is worse than it was seven years ago,' said former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, chairman of the nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative.

"Nunn and others cited a confluence of factors - including the growing number of nations seeking nuclear weapons, the spread of sophisticated technologies, complacency among government officials and the public, and growing anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world - with fueling the efforts of violent extremists."

Endless War?

The Los Angeles Times editorial board writes that Bush's effort to "solidify the legal justification for some of his administration's most questionable policies . . . brings up a question that's been plaguing us since 9/11: Should we consider our conflict with terrorists a war or a police action? Certainly it doesn't fit the usual definition of a war.... Preventing another attack on the homeland isn't a war, it's a security challenge. . . .

"The consequences of our war footing are not only restrictions on our freedom and privacy that would never be tolerated under ordinary circumstances, but the expenditure of billions of dollars on measures that may not be justified. . . .

"Bush argues that the measures he has put in place are the reason the United States hasn't suffered a major terrorist attack on its soil since 9/11. Maybe that's true. Or maybe the threat just wasn't as great as the administration has made it out to be. We don't have the answer to that question, but perhaps, seven years after the attacks, emotions have cooled to the point where we can at least debate it more seriously."

Where's Bin Laden?

Right-wing talk radio host Michael Smerconish writes for Salon: "Where the hell are Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri? And why does virtually no one ask anymore? What's changed since the days when any suburban soccer mom would have strangled either of them with her bare hands if given the chance? And what happened to President Bush's declaration to a joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11 that 'any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.' Doesn't that apply to Pakistan? . . .

"We're at the seven-year anniversary of 9/11, lacking not only closure with regard to the two top al-Qaida leaders but also public discourse about any plan to bring them to justice. To me, that suggests a continuation of what I perceive to be the Bush administration's outsourcing of this responsibility at great cost to a government with limited motivation to get the job done. . . .

"The Bush administration's failure to orchestrate a successful counterterrorism plan -- one topped off with justice for Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri -- has left me embarrassed of my party and angry. The oft-repeated explanations of the search being nuanced or covering difficult terrain should have worn thin long ago."

Liberal blogger Brad DeLong writes: "If somebody had told me on September 11, 2001 that seven years later Osama bin Laden would still be alive, and that the principal accomplishment of the U.S. military over the past seven years had been to install some theocratic Iranian allies in power in Baghdad, and had done so at the cost of 4,500 American and between a quarter of a million and a million Iraqi lives, I would have simply refused to believe them.

"I would have said: 'No. I have a very low opinion of George W. Bush. But even my opinion of him is not that low.'"