Leaked Intelligence Memo: War In Iraq Making Us Less Safe
So the New York Times (who else?) has gotten its hands on a National Intelligence Estimate memo which states, at least according to the Times, that the war in Iraq has made the problem of Islamic terrorism worse.
As you can imagine, this revelation (if you can call it that) is a dream come true for the media/Democrats who have been pushing the idea that the war in Iraq has made us less safe for years now. But before there is a rush to judgment over this, let’s consider a few things.
First, let’s remember that the folks in charge creating this memo are the same people who botched it when it came to determining whether or not there were WMD’s in Iraq. Let’s also remember that many of the folks in the intelligence community are no allies of the Bush administration or America’s current foreign policy. In support of that, consider how this memo made its way to the public. It wasn’t released through official channels, it was leaked illegally by “several officials” who were involved in preparing the document. Now I think we can safely assume that the people who did the leaking in this instance have an agenda, and that agenda is clearly to undermine our foreign policy in Iraq. And if we can assume that the leak of this memo was agenda-driven how far do we have to go to believe that it was authored with a particular agenda in mind as well?
Not very far.
The point everyone will miss in the rush to judge the war in Iraq with this information is the fact that, yet again, government bureaucrats have worked in collusion with the media to undermine the foreign policy decisions of the leader the American people have elected to make those decisions.
During the President’s term in office a lot of his critics have made ominous comments about his alleged abuse of his office’s power, but what scares me more than any talk of a President “out of control” is the reality we see put front and center by the leak of this memo: The real power grab is coming from the media and their like-minded allies entrenched in our government’s bureaucracies. By printing these agenda-driven leak stories they are seeking to usurp power from our elected leaders and influence American policies so that they are more in line with their own preferences.
These journalists even want a shield law to protect them and their sources from ever being held accountable for leaking/publishing classified information. Making a decisions about classified information is a responsibility we assign to our elected leaders, not to unelected bureaucrats or reporters with agendas.
As for the information in this intelligence memo, my reaction is: So what? Even if we are creating more terrorists in Iraq (I have little doubt that our occupation of that country is a good recruiting tool for the Islamic fascists), does that mean we should pull out? Would not the idea that the terrorists have driven the “infidels” from Iraq be an even more powerful recruiting tool than are current presence in Iraq? Of course it would, and such a victory for the terrorists would undoubtedly embolden them to plot and launch more attacks on the west. Just as America’s retreat from Somalia in the early 1990’s (along with other foreign policy blunders) prompted Osama bin Laden and his gang of ghouls to plot and execute the 9/11 attacks, so would a retreat from Iraq spark a shift in the war from the middle east back to our shores.
It is exactly what they want, folks. They want us to pull out. They want to move the war from their homes to ours. We are fighting them there so that we don’t have to fight them here.
Graeme
likwidshoe
Bullwinkle
robert108
CatMow
keith_glory2
Move_Zig
watashiwa
Rodney Graves
