Wolfowitz Says U.S. Must Act Even on 'Murky' Data: "``The battle to secure the peace in Iraq is now the central battle in the war on terror,'' he said. "

Wolfowitz claims that the intelligence on terrorism is murky. Well, the Congressional investigation found that we had good intelligence about some of the main 9-11 terrorists. We knew they were al Qaeda, and that they were living in the US. They were actually living with an FBI informant! (The FBI is the agency responsible for countering terrorism in the US.) So what we needed was effective action from the administration on pretty clear intelligence. Not preemptive wars.

Let's talk about Afghanistan. We went in there. Overthrew the Taliban, with the loss of very few US soldiers or pilots. So far so good. A big factor in our success was buying the support of local warlords. So guess who's running Afghanistan now? The warlords. Guess what they are doing to make money. Growing heroin. Guess where that heroin is going to be consumed. Here in the US. Does a flood of heroin in our cities and towns make us safer? How many people will die from that drug supply? How many people will be killed by junkies doing crime to feed their habit? In a country the size of the US, I would guess that number is in the thousands.

That's not a good return on our war on terror. I would expect an effective policy to make us safer, not multiply dangers.

As for Afghanistan, how will it develop with an economy based on banditry/warlordism and heroin? It won't. It remains a dreadful place for women. It has a medieval justice system. The warlords are the government, legislature and judiciary in their areas. And they control the whole country.

And as for the war on terrorism, that's been replaced by the war on iraq. See the story (above) from the new yorker. and weep.
- posted by geoff @ #