Former Terrorism Czar Calls Iraq Invasion 'enormous Mistake'

[CShine]

The invasion of Iraq was an "enormous mistake" that is costing untold lives, strengthening al-Qaida and breeding a new generation of terrorists, former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said Saturday.

"We did exactly what al-Qaida said we would do - invade and occupy an oil-rich Arab country that wasn't threatening us in any way," Clarke said before giving the keynote address at the American Library Association's annual convention in Orlando. "The hatred that has been engendered by this invasion will last for generations."

Clarke, a counterterrorism adviser to the past three presidents, wrote the book "Against All Enemies," which strongly criticizes the Bush administration for making Iraq a top priority and for underestimating warnings about al-Qaida before the Sept. 11 attacks. Clarke said the United States will lose the war on terrorism if it loses the battle of ideas against extremists in the Middle East.

"We won the Cold War by, yes, having good strong military forces but also by competing in the battle of ideas against the Communists," Clarke later told the librarians. "We have to do that with the jihadists."

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBT9UBGYVD.html

[stevedeshazer]

1. Clarke is back?

Where has he been?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. To compete in the arena of ideas...

Will require insight, impulse control, true maturity, true strength and compassion. None of these qualities exist, institutionally, in the maladministration. It is made up of broken toys and malign homunculi, horrid things and urges and memories and desires for revenge best left in the shadows, never to see the light of day.

But they got out. Now, we gotta round them up and lock them back in the sub-cellar.

Oh my. Is history gonna have a field day with this lot?

[thebigidea]

3. I'm glad he's speaking out again

Hmm. I suppose he wants to avoid blame re: the Saudi flights.

Clarke, loved your testimony, gotta disagree with you.

At least he has the class to do the same:

"Making the incident a big part of the movie was a mistake, said Clarke, who added that he agrees with many things Moore stands for."

Intriguing guy. Betcha scripts are being written about him as we speak.

[Kadie]

4. He also talks about Fahrenheit 9/11 and Michael Moore

snip...
Clarke took issue with some elements of filmmaker Michael Moore's new documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11," which depicts how the Bush administration allowed Saudi nationals and members of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s family to leave the United States days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Clarke said he thought the Saudi government was "perfectly justified" in wanting its citizens to leave the United States out of fears of "vigilantism" by Americans.

snip...
Making the incident a big part of the movie was a mistake, said Clarke, who added that he agrees with many things Moore stands for.

more... http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040627/ap_on_re_us/iraq_richard_clarke_1

[TacticalPeek]

7. "perfectly justified"

Clarke said he thought the Saudi government was "perfectly justified" in wanting its citizens to leave the United States out of fears of "vigilantism" by Americans.

Am I to believe that there were less than 200 Saudi citizens here then? The point is that only Bush-connected cronies got the special pass on vigilantism, under shoddy natsec conditions.

The point is not that Clarke signed off on this; it is why, how and who got it on his desk to begin with.

[struggle4progress]

5. To win in November, our side needs to make it clear ...

... that we can and will work with honest and decent people who disagree with us.

But we also need a clear resolve against compromising with inflexible neocon ideologues.

[DustMolecule]

6. How about.... and also not compriomising

with any 'new' form of inflexible ideologues that might/probably will spring up (cause the conditions are 'ripe' right now for that to happen as well).