"Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States"

The Democrats ought to take the most recent Intelligence Assessment, the one that concludes that the Iraq War has increased the threat of terrorism, and mount a campaign that poses a very simple question to voters - "Are you More Secure Today than When the Republicans took Control of the Executive and Legislative Branches?" The answer clearly is "No." The problem, of course, is that the Democrats simply rolled over when BushCo lied their way into an invasion. So while Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell and Rice were spreading innumerable lies about WMDs, Irag-al Queda links, and Hussein's responsibillity for 9/11, the Democrats largely stood to one side and let them get away with it.

Of course, the report is confidential for "security" reasons even if it is merely stating what is obvious; and, of course, the Republicans are doing their best to spin its dire conclusions. But there really is no geting around it. Here are the stories in The New York Times and The Guardian. Let's be clear, this is not the "liberal media" presenting a biased view of a war they don't like (The Times, after all, was supine during the run up to the Iraq invasion too); it is a distillation of assessments by 16 government intelligence agencies. This is what happens when administrations lie - we get perhaps unintended, but hardly unforeseeable bad consequences.

So now we face a double-bind: we cannot simply pull out of Iraq since that would be a disaster even though staying on in Iraq provides fodder for all those budding terrorist groups out there. That is the legacy of Bush's foreign policy.