Seeing Through the Smoke...

Australian PM John Howard today argued that the Iraq war has diminished the chance of terrorist attacks in Australia, without ever actually explaining how this could be true. Howard brushed off criticism that he ignored important pre-war intelligence (see the JIC story below), trotting out the usual excuse that he is never actually informed of anything he doesn't want to know. Then Howard offered up this somewhat bizzarre quote:

"It was the judgment of the head of ASIO that the war in Iraq would not influence what al-Qaeda did. He said it might influence the timing of terrorist attacks but our consistent advice was that a war in Iraq would not of itself alter the nature of the intent of al-Qaeda. Given that al-Qaeda was the main terrorist network, I found that advice quite compelling."

Sorry? The advice was that war in Iraq would NOT impact al-Quaeda. Surely this could only be a "compelling" argument against the war. Is this the logical conclusion of Doublethink gone ballistic, or is the old bastard just getting senile?

For a more coherent view of things, William Pfaff has written an excellent article, The Limits of US Force, wherein he argues that military power is not a logical solution to terrorism, in fact it is totally counter-productive. Pfaff says the US has inadvertently revealed the weaknesses of its military might, including an inability to deal with chaotic guerilla situations, high operational costs and the swelling political consequences of over-deployment and excess casualties.

At the same time, Pfaff argues, US "soft power" intelligence and diplomacy has diminished and allies have been estranged. This is the kind of story that makes you remember that it is the world - not you - that is going crazy.

Meanwhile, talking about crazy people, the fourteen hundred scientists, military and intelligence "experts" who have been scouring Iraq looking for WMDs for the past four months are ready to go home now. The group's leader, David Kay, was due to release a delayed report this week. Now it seems the report may never be published (well, why would you publish it if it was embarrassing, right?).