Clarke knocks it out of the park in a Daily News op-ed on Iraq, just destroying the ridiculous "flypaper strategy" meme. These Bush administration claims are both illogical and politically motivated, deserving of the contempt that Clarke delivers. No summary of mine is going to improve upon his biting deconstruction, so here are a few excerpts:
Does the President think terrorists are puppy dogs? He keeps saying that terrorists will "follow us home" like lost dogs. This will only happen, however, he says, if we "lose" in Iraq.While we create more terrorists in Iraq, meanwhile, we aren't devoting the requisite resources to actually improving our security.
The puppy dog theory is the corollary to earlier sloganeering that proved the President had never studied logic: "We are fighting terrorists in Iraq so that we will not have to face them and fight them in the streets of our own cities." . . .
How is this odd terrorist puppy dog behavior supposed to work? The President must believe that terrorists are playing by some odd rules of chivalry. Would this be the "only one slaughter ground at a time" rule of terrorism?
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.
In the real world, by choosing unnecessarily to go into Iraq, Bush not only diverted efforts from delivering a death blow to Al Qaeda, he gave that movement both a second chance and the best recruiting tool possible.I'm not sure how many experts need to say this before everyone understands and believes it.
