Bush success vs. al Qaeda breeds long-term worries

Two posts from the news in one day.

According to this article, Bush has been largely successful in hurting al Queda:

"President George W. Bush's administration has crippled al Qaeda's ability to carry out major attacks on U.S. soil but at a political and economic cost that could leave the country more vulnerable in years to come, experts say."

Wait a minute, political costs associated with crippling al Qaeda? That makes no sense. It would seem that he would gain political capital by crippling al Qaeda. (I'll address the economic issue later in this blog).

The most positive statement is "If the question is why al Qaeda hasn't carried out another 9/11 attack, the answer I think is that if they could have, they would have""

So the current policies have crippled al Qaeda to the point that another 9/11 has been avoided.

"The number and lethality of the attacks have fallen off since 2004. Last year, there were five attacks and 28 deaths, according to IntelCenter statistics, which do not include attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan or other war zones."

Again, good news. al Qaeda is definitely impacted.

Now for the bad news: "(al Qaeda's plans are)very simply defined in two phrases: spread out America's forces and bleed the United States to bankruptcy. I'd argue America has been under attack successfully every day since 9/11 from that perspective."

This is the economic issue listed above. Let's see, where has this happened before? USSR in the cold war?

The article continues "If you're looking at it from the cave, or wherever al Qaeda is hiding at the moment, you have to be pretty happy with the way the world is moving."

Again, not a good sign.

So, my comment is this. Over the last 6+1/2 years, America has gotten safer. al Qaeda is weakened. Doing this has cost George Bush politically. It's also cost America economically.

Americans have two choices:
1) Step up to the cost and keep fighting al Qaeda
2) Decide that it's not worth the cost and give up.

In the 2000 election, no one had a clue what would happen on 9/11/01. In the 2008 election, no one has a clue what will happen during the following 4 years that will require decision making in areas we can't conceive. I for one, think that we made the right decision in 2000 and 2004. I hope we have some good choices in 2008.